Tainted Steel
by The Distorted Shadow
Summary: A single meeting can change a life. But how was anyone to know that a Fateful Encounter on a cold winter night in Fuyuki City would have such far reaching consequences?
1. Chapter 1

Well now...

I originally wasn't planning on releasing this as a fully fledged story until I'd finished one of my currently active fics.

But I'm not particularly patient so I ended up giving in and deciding to post this anyway.

First things first, I will point out that while this is labelled as a Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime Crossover, the Tsukihime aspect comes from the presence of the 27 Dead Apostle Ancestors as an organisation (given Nasu has said in an interview that the organisation doesn't exist in Fate Worlds and Servants can't be summoned in worlds with it... but naturally, this is fanfiction and I can choose to ignore those for the sake of the story).

Secondly...

**I have a Discord Server for anyone interested in discussing anything with me.**

**The Invite Code is:**

**VAg566W**

**This is also available on my profile page.**

Now that that is out of the way... let's get on with the fic.

* * *

Emiya Shirou could do little more than sag as he hefted the pair of bags at his side.

To think that Fuji-nee had sent him to collect her order from that bar her friend worked at.

It wasn't a problem helping her out, but he was a bit too young to be walking the streets with bottles of Sake... especially now that it was the height of winter and the sun was going down so early.

That wasn't even including the fact that there were quite a few bottles in the bags, making them a bit heavy for someone of his age and build, which combined with the long walk across the bridge to the other side of town made the journey rather tiring.

Even now, he was only just reaching the park at the base of the bridge, a thin covering of snow making the stairs down to the park far more treacherous than he was used to.

At least he was wearing a thick coat and was working hard carrying the bags, so the cold wasn't really getting to him, even as the dark streets were showing a lack of the usual bustle that occupied them during warmer seasons.

Finally reaching the final step, he breathed a sigh of relief that he had managed to make it all the way down without slipping or dropping a bag.

Exactly why Fuji-nee couldn't have chosen someone better suited to the task was beyond him, but then again, she wasn't the sort of person who thought things through that well to begin with.

Shaking his head clear, he started to make his way through the park as he wondered how his surrogate sister would react to the length of time it had taken him to get the delivery to her.

Looking around the park as he continued his journey, he found his attention quickly being drawn by something that was laying on the ground near a bench.

Focusing on the strangely shaped lump, he moved closer in an attempt to get a better look before a realization hit him.

It was a person.

His mind started to race as he wondered why a person would be lying on the ground in a place like that, especially with the dusting of snow proving just how cold it was.

"Uhm… are you okay there?" he called out, earning little more than a shifting of the mass as it seemed to curl up more.

At the lack of response, he made his decision on what to do.

Moving right up to the person lying on the ground, he noted they were a woman that looked to be about the same age as Fuji-nee, with long dark hair that was flayed out on the ground, while a dark Yukata hung loosely covering her body.

There were also several bottles of Sake lying around that made it clear she had passed out from drinking too much.

"Uh… are you okay miss?" he asked once again as he leaned closer to her head, "do you need any help?"

He knew that helping the woman would be hard, especially with the bags he was currently carrying but he wasn't going to just leave her to freeze to death in the middle of the park.

Slowly the woman started to open an eye before looking at him, clearly indicating she'd at least registered some of what he'd just said this time.

"You really should go home," he found himself saying even as the chill started to seep into his muscles now that he had stopped moving, "if you stay here you'll freeze."

His statement was met by a dismissive wave of the woman's hand.

"Don't have a home," she proclaimed, and he found himself blinking in surprise at that declaration.

"Don't you have anywhere to stay?" he asked, earning a shake off the woman's head.

"Nope!" she chirped out almost happily and Shirou found himself growing even more worried for the woman.

"Don't you have any money?" he questioned with concern, "you could always get a room at a hotel or something."

Her expression seemed to scrunch up before she started to search around her pockets before her face lit up again.

"Oh yeah… I lost everything didn't I?" she asked rhetorically, and he found himself growing even more concerned for the inebriated woman.

If she had lost everything, then it was no wonder she was lying on the street in such unseasonable clothes.

But what could he do to help her?

He didn't have any money on him so he couldn't give her anything to help tide her over until she got her belongings back, but he couldn't exactly leave her there either.

There was one thing he could think of however.

Releasing a sigh of defeat, he proceeded to give the woman an offer.

"I have a few spare rooms at my home," he told her, drawing her attention to him, "you can borrow one of them until you've got yourself sorted out."

Her eyes seemed to fix on him as her head tilted and he was sure he saw a hint of something behind her expression but before he could identify it, it was gone.

"Oh? So you'll give me somewhere to stay?" she asked him and he simply nodded in confirmation, dismissing whatever he thought he saw as a trick of the light, "oh… what a friendly little fairy you are."

Shirou could do little more than stare at her at the strange nickname she had already given him.

"My name is Shirou," he told her bluntly, earning an amused smile off the woman, "can you walk?"

He wasn't sure if the woman would even be able to stand up, but he found himself silently relieved when she proceeded to push herself off the ground and stumble to her feet.

"… yep! I think I can!" she proclaimed victoriously, and he found himself wondering just how much this woman had to drink if she was this excited over simply standing up.

"Well… uhm…" he found himself focusing on what to say to the woman before dismissing any response and just giving a simple instruction, "my place is a little in that direction… just follow me and we'll be there soon."

Turning to face the direction that lead towards his house, he started to walk, continuing to be careful about any slippery spots while keeping an eye on the woman that was following him.

"So… what are you little white fairy?" the woman's voice called out and he found himself simply shrugging in response.

"Just a student," he told her without delay, if anything, the fact that she had asked something with such an obvious answer was just more proof of just how drunk she was.

"Really?" she sounded disbelieving, but he once again dismissed it as a case of her not being cognitive enough to understand he was just a kid, "you certainly remind me of a fairy."

He released a sigh at that claim as he considered whether she even understood what he was currently doing.

All he could tell, was that it was most likely going to be a rather long trip home.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Reaching the entrance to the Emiya Residence was enough to make him worry about the greeting he was going to get.

Both from how long he took to get Taiga's order and from the fact that he brought a stranger back with him.

But it was too late to change his mind now.

"We're here," he said as he turned to face the woman once again, noting that she was starting to lose her balance as they stood still.

"Oh… this place looks nice," she said with a smile that looked almost nostalgic.

"Yeah… now come on, I'm late enough as it is," he told her as he proceeded to enter through the gate and make his way towards the front door.

Opening the front door was easy enough, it had been maintained properly so using his foot to slide it to the side was perfectly doable, allowing him to enter the house with the lights on, showing that Taiga had returned from her meeting with the staff of the local high school.

"Fuji-nee, I'm back," he called out before hesitating and adding an extra part, "…with a guest."

"Huh? A guest?" the voice of his big sister figure sounded confused as it echoed from the living room, "who is it?"

He found himself turning to face the woman and noted that now he had a proper light source, he could finally identify that her skin was incredibly pale, to the point where it reminded him of porcelain, while the hair that she had draped over her left shoulder was jet black.

Beyond that, her Yukata was a navy blue with white wave patterns adorning it, and most strikingly was her eyes… a deep Scarlett.

"Uh…" he hesitated upon realizing he didn't know the woman's name.

Unfortunately, that was clearly enough to give that fact away to Fuji-nee.

"SHIROU!" he practically rushed towards the living room as his irate guardian charged out of the door and turned a glare on the person he had brought with him.

"Ah, Fuji-nee-" he started to say before he noted the way her face went from angry to suddenly far more concerned after looking at the woman he had brought home.

"Oh god, you're so pale," was the first thing she said as she looked at the woman and quickly moved past him to check up on the woman, with her hand immediately going to feel the woman's forehead the moment she was within reach, "SHIROU! PUT THE KOTATSU ON AND MAKE SOMETHING HOT!"

He couldn't stop himself from noticing the near panic in his legal guardian's tone and lay the bags down on the floor before rushing to do as he had been told.

Turning on the heated table first, he quickly moved through to the kitchen and set some water to boil for some tea before he decided to see what sort of food he should make.

By the time he had set the water to boil, he noted that Taiga was already setting the woman he had found at the blanket covered furniture while obviously worrying about the woman.

"Just stay there, I'm just going to call an ambulance and-" she was cut off when the woman proceeded to grab her arm before offering a serene smile.

"I'm fine," the woman said as she started to lean to the side.

"You're freezing cold!" his practically adopted sister stated firmly, "that is not fine!"

"Fuji-nee," he found himself speaking up as he considered what he knew of the woman that had just walked with him, "let's wait until tomorrow before we make that decision."

"What? Why would you say that Shirou?" the woman that lived next door asked with confusion clear in her tone.

"Well… it's just that she managed to walk all this way from the park on her own," he explained, earning a frown from the brown-haired Yakuza Granddaughter.

After a few seconds, the Fuyuki Tiger proceeded to release a sigh of defeat before nodding in confirmation.

"Fine… but you're staying under the kotatsu and making sure you stay warm," she declared to the raven-haired lady that had just been brought into the household.

"Sure, sure…" the woman responded unenthusiastically, "do you have any sake?"

Shirou found himself releasing a sigh as he found himself unsurprised by that question by the woman.

"Wha-?" Taiga started to speak before she started to shake, "Sake is the last thing you should be drinking in your condition!"

He honestly didn't know why that was the case, but he wasn't going to try arguing when the woman was likely in this position because of it in the first place.

"It's fine, it's fine," the woman spoke with an easy smile as she attempted to placate the other adult in the house.

"Shirou, go and get all my drinks and put them in a bag," those instructions were said without any hint of uncertainty and he found himself nodding even as he poured a cup of green tea now that the water had boiled.

"I'll do that once I've made dinner," he told her bluntly, earning a nod of acknowledgment from the brown haired woman.

"Don't let me forget, understand?" she commanded him, and he nodded in acceptance.

"Yeah," he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about her giving him instructions like that… she should learn to remember things on her own instead of relying on him to remind her.

But he would do what he was told, dealing with her being angry at him for not reminding her would be more trouble than it was worth.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from watching as the woman he had brought home slowly ate the meal that he'd prepared.

It was a pretty standard fare all things considered, with rice, fish, whatever meat he had available and other such things all laid out on the table for pickings.

The woman however seemed to be thinking as she ate the food.

"You know," she finally spoke up and he found himself fixing his attention on her as she continued her thoughtful frown, "you're pretty good for a kid."

"Thank you," he accepted that compliment without issue as he finished off the last of his portion of the meal.

The woman seemed to just frown even more before she opened her mouth once again.

"It would be better if I had some Sake to wash it down with," her words didn't come as a surprise to him but given the growl that came from his legal guardian, he doubted they were appreciated.

"You're freezing," the woman that was supposed to look after him stated firmly, "Sake would not help."

"Mah, you're just being too serious," the woman responded without delay, "a little sake never hurt anyone."

"Tell that to all the people who need to get their stomachs pumped," it was a bit of a surprise to hear Fuji-nee talk like that, but he wasn't going to argue, especially not in this situation.

"Meh, they just have a weak constitution," the woman responded with an amused smile, "I've been drunk for…"

The way she stalled made it clear she was about to say something but stopped herself.

"Well… let's just say it's been a long time since I was sober… and I've never had any problems," she finished off.

Silence reigned after that declaration.

Shirou found himself staring at her blankly even as Taiga did the same.

"That is probably the most ridiculous thing I've heard," the brown-haired woman finally said after a few seconds.

"Well it's true," the drunkard said with a frown of her own.

Shirou couldn't stop himself from releasing a sigh at the interaction.

"It doesn't matter," the woman he knew longer said with her annoyance clear in her tone, "you're not getting any more alcohol."

"That's no fun," the obvious displeasure in the woman's voice made it clear she wasn't happy with that condition.

"I don't care," the declaration by Taiga was completely expected.

The huff that came from the woman he had brought home was almost childlike.

Shaking his head, he simply pushed those thoughts aside and started to clear the table.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The night started to drag after a little while and Shirou found himself noting that the woman he had brought home didn't look any different from how she had been before with the sole exception that she appeared to be sobering up.

Taiga however was clearly beginning to look tired and Shirou decided it was probably time for the woman to go home.

"Fuji-nee," he called out to her, drawing her attention, "I've packed up the alcohol."

The girl that was the closest thing he had to a sister seemed to freeze at that before releasing a tired sigh.

"Will you be all right?" she asked, and he found himself nodding his head in response even as the woman glanced at his 'guest'.

"Yeah," he admitted without delay, "I'm not a child anymore."

It was something that could be argued, he was still only about twelve years old from what he was aware, so he could still be counted as a child.

The frown he received from his neighbor made it clear she was thinking the same thing.

"… fine… if anything happens, don't be afraid to call… okay?" the woman told him, and he nodded in acknowledgment.

"Of course," he acknowledged without delay.

Watching his sister figure picking up the bags containing all the drinks, he offered her his farewells as she proceeded to make her way out of the house at a sedate pace.

Eventually the brown-haired Yakuza granddaughter had left the house and Shirou found himself turning his attention towards the woman still sitting at the kotatsu.

He probably shouldn't leave her alone, but he found himself considering the fact that he needed to practice his magecraft if he was to ever make anything of the skill.

Besides, she likely wasn't going to go anywhere.

"Sorry, but I've got something I need to do in the shed," he told her, offering no explanation as to what exactly he needed to do as he moved to leave the room and make his way across the garden, "just stay here and try to stay warm."

And with that said, he proceeded to leave the area and start his short journey towards his workshop.

Entering the shed didn't take long, however he immediately proceeded to do what he could to lock the door just in case the woman didn't listen to his instructions and came out.

He didn't want her witnessing the sort of thing he practiced after all.

After making sure the door was firmly closed, he finally turned to one of the shelves and looked at the scrap he had ready for his practice.

Picking out a simple pipe, he set it down on the floor before taking a seated position in front of it.

Taking a deep breath, he started to focus inside himself.

"- Trace, on. "

With that simple chant, he proceeded to hypnotize himself, focusing on the concept of having a Magic Circuit so fervently that he forced his nerves to register one that wasn't there.

Almost immediately, he was forced to endure a pain that felt like having a red-hot rod pushed down his spine… but he didn't let his concentration break for even a moment.

This pain was the proof that he was succeeding, proof that he was getting his body ready to perform magic.

And if he lost control of it for even a moment, the process would rip through his body and kill him without achieving anything.

It took well over an hour of intense concentration to push the rod in place, the excruciating pain a constant reminder that he was still undergoing the process needed to use any magic at all.

Eventually, he felt the rod settle in place and prepared himself for the next step.

"- composition, analyze," he muttered as he proceeded to start analyzing the pipe before him, seeing it in near perfect detail, all the way down to any minor scratches that had appeared on it over the course of its lifetime.

"- basic structure, alter," he chanted as he focused on starting to infuse the pipe with the magical energy he was currently forcing through his body, attempting to iron out all the flaws that existed within the pipe.

"- composition, reinforce."

He fought as hard as he could, but he simply couldn't produce enough power to fuel the spell.

And with a shattering gasp, he felt the rod vanish from his spine and the relief that came with no longer having the burning within his spine.

Collapsing onto his back, he closed his eyes as he gasped for air, every gulp of winter chill helping in cooling him down even as his throat cried out for moisture.

After several seconds of gasping, he felt something that immediately made him go rigid once again.

Something was moving under his head and pushing it up.

All the while he felt a cool surface touch his lips before a cold liquid splashed against his lips and made its way into his mouth, letting him identify it as water.

Without thinking, he started to drink the fluid, before the glass finally ended and he found himself managing to relax slightly.

"That was an incredibly stupid thing you just did," a voice that sounded familiar but much more serious than he remembered it ever being spoke and he opened his eyes to see the very person he had locked the door to keep out.

Glancing at the entranceway, he found himself blinking at the simple fact it was clearly unlocked, though he had no idea how it could be.

"I mean honestly… jury-rigging your nerves into a makeshift magic circuit has to be one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen," he took a second to process what she had just said before his eyes widened in disbelief.

"Y-you know about magic?" he couldn't stop himself from blurting out in shock at the revelation.

She just looked at him with an expression that made it perfectly clear it was a stupid question.

"How about we go back into the house and talk there," she offered, and he found himself nodding in acknowledgment even as he wondered just what was going to happen now.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from reeling as he considered the simple fact that the woman he had brought home had known about magic.

"So, let's start," she spoke up and he found himself looking at her with rapt attention, "what are you?"

"What do you mean?" he decided to ask for clarification… he was sure she had asked him that question before… but last time he had thought she was simply a drunk lady lying on the street… now he knew she was at least familiar enough with magic to figure out he was using his nerves as a makeshift magic circuit.

"Let's just say that I'm particularly in tune with nature," she spoke, and he found himself blinking, "so I can feel two conflicting natures coming from you."

That made him frown in confusion.

What could she possibly mean by that?

"The weaker nature… feels like the Fey," her words were clear and he found his eyes widening in disbelief at that, "and the other one… the other one reminds me of certain people I know."

"But why would they contradict each other?" it was a simple question, especially since he didn't even know how he apparently felt like he had these natures.

"Because the Fey are extensions of nature and therefore embraced by it," she stated firmly, "while this other nature is an aberration that is rejected by it."

That statement alone made him freeze in disbelief.

What did that even mean?

"I don't get it," he admitted with a frown, earning a sigh off the woman.

"You feel like people I know who possess Reality Marbles," she proclaimed, prompting him to stare blankly at her.

"I have no idea what that is," he admitted without delay.

The exasperated frown he got off her made it clear she had expected him to have some idea what she meant.

"Basically…" she started before giving a thoughtful frown, "basically, a Reality Marble is… it's who you are…"

She definitely sounded like she was struggling with that explanation and he found himself frowning at that.

"It's who I am?" he found himself asking for confirmation.

"Look kid, I'm not a Magus, so if you want a proper explanation then ask someone like Chaos, Blackmore, or Svelten… they'd be much better at explaining it than me," she claimed with clear frustration.

The important part however, was clear to Shirou.

"You're not a Magus?" he couldn't stop himself from blinking at that.

"No, I'm a Dead Apostle with a close connection to the True Ancestors," her words meant nothing to him.

Clearly she noticed his lack of comprehension.

"Basically, I'm a vampire with a strong connection to the type of Elemental that creates them," her words rang out and he found himself suddenly growing much more concerned about her presence.

"Y-you're a vampire?" he found himself asking uncertainly.

"Yep," she chirped out easily and suddenly he realized just why her skin was so pale and her temperature was so low, "you found me when I was hunting."

He suddenly felt his blood grow colder as he considered just how bad a situation he was in.

"So why haven't you killed me yet?" he asked, wondering just why she was being so… well, friendly towards him.

"Eh?" she looked almost puzzled by his question before speaking up once again, "you're a kid and I'm not Svelten."

He had no idea who this Svelten person was… but he doubted they were anything good if her words were anything to go by.

"So you don't plan to eat me?" he asked, earning a snort off the lady.

"You're a little small for my tastes," her proclamation was made without any sense of sarcasm or mockery in her tone.

He still didn't feel good about her presence.

"And what about Taiga?" he asked without hesitation.

"… is that the woman who forbid my drink?" she asked with her expression darkening somewhat.

"Yeah."

"I don't know," she stated in a blasé fashion and Shirou found himself clenching his fists in response, "I mean, normally I just wait for idiots who think I'm an easy target… but she's going about the right way of getting me to make an exception."

He found himself growing angrier before the woman let out a laugh.

"Relax," she told him with amusement clear in her tone, "I'm not quite so petty as to eat someone for something that small."

It took him a second to realize what she meant.

She had been joking.

He felt a sense of relief at that revelation, even if he found himself unable to relax around the Vampire he had inadvertently brought home with him.

"So why are you here?" he felt that that was the most important question to ask in the current situation.

She simply let out a small chuckle before looking at him.

"Because of what you feel like," she stated bluntly, and he found himself growing confused at the claim.

"But why does that matter?" he asked with his confusion clear in his tone.

"You feel out of place, unique… of course I'm going to be interested in you," she told him with a blank stare.

It was a simple statement and he found himself inwardly acknowledging that point.

She had mentioned that he had contradictory essences before.

"What are you going to do now?" his question was short and simple, and he found himself watching the woman for anything that might give him an idea of her intentions.

"Well… I was hoping to get the chance to properly analyze you," she spoke and he found himself frowning, "after all, if you don't know what you are, then that seems like the best way to find out."

He thought about it for a few seconds, going over the simple fact that she _had _given him a glass of water after his attempt at training earlier, and hadn't actually shown any signs of hostility since meeting him.

"Okay," he decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, especially since he was sure he couldn't have done anything to stop her if she wanted to hurt him.

An almost mischievous smile crept onto her face at his acceptance.

"Well then, come here and lay your head on Onee-chan's lap," her tone sounded like Fuji-nee's when she was mocking him, even as that smile remained on her face and she patted her lap in a clear sign of where she wanted him to move to.

"Uh…"

"Don't be shy," she continued before he could say anything to argue.

"Why did you call yourself 'Onee-chan'?" he couldn't stop himself from asking her, his mind focusing on the familiarity she was showing.

His question seemed to make her frown a little.

"I don't get many chances to be an Onee-chan, so don't ruin it for me," she responded and he found himself gulping a little in response before moving over to her side of the table.

Doing as he was told, he rested his head on her lap before noting that she practically started to massage his head with her eyes closed.

"Now… let's see here…" he heard her mutter under her breath.

Silence reigned for what felt like an eternity, though the changing expression on her face made it clear she was actually doing something.

Eventually though, her eyes opened in obvious surprise.

"I don't believe it," she muttered before shaking her head, "so that's why you feel like a Fey."

"What is it?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Where to start…" her words made him nervous.

The mere idea that there was enough to make deciding where to start awkward was not comforting.

"Well… I guess I'll start at the most obvious part," she continued, "physically you're human."

That was obvious.

"You currently have an interesting number of dormant magic circuits," her words made his eyes widen.

He had magic circuits?

"How many? And what makes the number interesting?" he asked her, earning a wry smile from her.

"Twenty Seven," she stated bluntly, "and it's interesting because it matches the number of _us _there should be."

"What do you mean 'us'?"

"I am one of a certain group… a group that there are supposed to be twenty seven of," she said before her expression turned serious, "we are known as the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors."

That… didn't sound good.

"Who are you?" he couldn't stop himself from asking, hearing that she apparently counted among a group with such an ominous name made him uneasy.

She tilted her head to the side before opening her mouth.

"My name is Sumire… but most people either call me the Twenty-first Dead Apostle Ancestor or by my other title… The Water Bottle."

Shirou found himself wondering if the title 'The Sake Bottle' was more appropriate but decided to keep his mouth shut about that.

"But back to you," she shook off the seriousness that had previously encroached into her tone before continuing, "you appear to have a very strong alignment with the concept of 'sword', have an innate Reality Marble and most importantly…"

Shirou focused hard at her stressing the last point was the most important.

"You have an exceptionally powerful Fey artifact imbued within your body."

He had to blink at that even as he noted her hand hover above his chest before a golden mist started to drift off it and slowly coalesce into the most beautiful object he had ever laid eyes on, as she drew it further and further away from his body.

When the object had finally emerged in it's entirety, he found his eyes fixated on the stunning sheath of blue and gold, made with a craftsmanship he could have never even dreamed of before seeing it with his own eyes.

"This, is Avalon… the Sheath of Excalibur," she was looking at it with eyes that indicated she held mixed feelings about it, "… and unfortunately… it is a relic that will only work for one person."

The way she shook her head made it clear she wasn't happy with that particular trait.

Shirou however, simply found himself considering the information and more importantly, the fact that he was certain she was being honest about it's inability to be used by anyone.

"Do you want to give it back to the Fey?" he asked her, earning a couple of blinks from the woman in response.

"Oh? Are you saying you're willing to give up such a priceless piece of history?" she asked and he nodded without hesitation.

"It isn't mine," he declared easily, "so it isn't right to keep it from it's true owners is it?"

He soon found himself the recipient of a pat as the woman offered him a wry smile.

"Then I'll return it to it's true owner the next time I'm in Europe," her words were simple and he found himself relaxing at that.

"In exchange… I guess I can give you some basic tips concerning magecraft and reality marbles," she declared and his eyes widened in shock.

"Now, what I'm about to tell you is how I understand it… but since I'm not a Magus, I can't say I know if it's exactly right or not… now… why don't we start on exactly what a reality marble is."

And with that, Shirou found himself listening intently until his exhaustion finally overcame him.

* * *

And that's all for now.

Shadow Out.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello everyone.

Here's the new chapter.

First things first though...

There is something in this chapter that isn't necessarily common knowledge due to being limited to the Fate/Zero Drama CD and it revolves around how Kiritsugu chose to train Shirou.

Basically, what I've put in here, actually has a foundation in the materials available concerning the Nasuverse.

Anyway... now that that is out of the way...

Let's get on with the chapter.

* * *

Emiya Shirou felt his consciousness return to him slowly as his body kicked him awake due to the habit of waking early.

He was clearly tired but it took him a few seconds to realise why.

That's right, he'd ended up bringing a legitimate Vampire home after finding them lying in the park surrounded by empty liquor bottles.

Just his luck.

Forcing himself off his futon, he started to stretch out the kinks that had formed in his muscles, he had morning exercises to run through after all and then there was the matter of making breakfast for Fuji-nee.

He frowned as he considered whether the vampire would eat regular food or not… it wasn't like she would need it but it would help make Fuji-nee less suspicious of her.

Shaking his head clear of those thoughts, he simply accepted that he would just have to deal with it when the situation came.

At least it was still dark due to it being the winter months, but he still had to wonder where the woman would sleep while the sun was out.

Getting dressed, he made his way out of his room and into the living room, noting that the vampiric woman was now slouched over the table with several bottles of Sake scattered around her.

"Where did you get the Sake?" he asked, a frown marring his face as he remembered making sure there wasn't any in the house.

"Oh, it was easy enough to get it from next door," she responded.

Shirou for his part, found himself palming his face at that declaration.

Of course she stole it from the Fujimura house.

He shouldn't have been surprised by that.

"You know Fuji-nee lives there don't you?" he asked, wondering how the Vampire would react to that knowledge.

"She should've known better than to keep a drunk from their booze," the retort was made with a smug grin.

"… I'm not going to protect you from Fuji-nee's wrath when she finds out you stole her booze," Shirou declared bluntly, earning a dismissive gesture off the woman as she returned to being draped over the table.

"I'm sure I can manage… I've had to deal with Riza, Svelten and Chaos plenty of times over the centuries, how bad can she be?"

He had no idea who those people were, but he had a feeling he would rather not learn.

"Well, it's your fault if she decides to come after you with the Tora-shinai," he wasn't going to protect her from that horrific stick.

"Sure sure…" she continued before going quiet for a few seconds.

"So, how are you planning on opening your Circuits?" she asked him and he found himself frowning in response.

He had no idea how to actually open them properly, but if they were Magic Circuits then surely that would mean that running some prana through them should work to kickstart them… which meant he would just have to jury-rig his nerves one more time to produce the energy to kick start them.

"I was thinking of using my nerves one more time to try and kickstart them," he decided to admit to her.

"I guess that could work," she responded, "not the safest of methods but then again, with substandard teaching like yours, it's only natural you wouldn't have much to call on."

He couldn't stop a frown from forming on his face at that.

"Substandard teaching?" he couldn't stop himself from feeling offended that she would delcare what Kiritsugu taught him substandard.

It was just that he was a bad student.

"Of course, no half-competent teacher would let their student do something as stupid as turn their nerves into magic circuits," she continued, "honestly, I'm amazed you haven't accidentally burned your nerves beyond repair doing that."

He couldn't stop a grimace from forming on his face at that.

"What do you mean?"

"Nerves aren't made to channel Prana," she said bluntly, "that's why it hurts so much when you do it… it's basically like running acid through your veins."

He couldn't stop himself from grimacing at that comparison.

It really didn't sound anywhere remotely good when described that way.

"So what would you suggest?" he decided to ask her if she had any better alternatives.

"You could simply ask me to help you," she told him with a grin on her face.

"… I thought you said you weren't a magus," he pointed out.

"I'm not, but I _do _possess a Marble Phantasm," she declared, "so convincing the local prana to run through your circuits to give them a kick-start isn't beyond my abilities."

He could do little more than stare in disbelief at that.

The idea of having his circuits kick-started definitely sounded nice.

Of course, he had no idea what she meant by 'Marble Phantasm' but then again, when did he know of anything concerning magecraft?

"What would that need?" he decided to confirm.

"Just another little rest in Onee-chan's lap," she told him as she raised her head and offered him a grin, "plus, a little rest after."

He nodded in understanding.

"Could we do it later tonight? I have school today," he explained to her earning a small chuckle from the woman.

"Oh, you're worried about going to school?" she asked and he frowned, "you're a good little boy aren't you?"

"I'm not little," he grumbled even as he inwardly acknowledged that even though he tended to take the role of the adult between him and Fuji-nee, he was still just a child.

"My eyes tell me otherwise," she teased.

"… I'm going to exercise now," he decided to give up trying to argue with her.

She was a Vampire and as nice as she appeared, she was still a blood-sucking creature of the night who was likely even older than Gramps.

"Don't work too hard," she called out and he immediately left to do his morning workout in the Dojo.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Morning was certainly awkward as far as Shirou was concerned.

Fuji-nee had immediately gone ballistic upon realising Sumire had snuck into her home and looted her family's alcohol stash… unfortunately for him, he could only say that he had been asleep at the time.

The Vampire however, had simply dismissed the whole matter with a casual air before hijacking one of his spare rooms before the sun had finished rising.

"That woman is nothing but trouble," the grumbling Taiga muttered as he washed the dishes from breakfast.

Sumire had at least eaten enough to be mistaken as human.

"She needed help," Shirou decided to try and act as a peacekeeper, after all, she was willing to help him open his magic circuits so he was willing to at least attempt to cover for her.

"She clearly needs to go to an AA meeting," she responded with a frown on her face, "I mean seriously! She even admits she doesn't remember the last time she was sober!"

Shirou didn't know what she meant by AA but judging by the context, it probably wasn't a good thing.

"At least she doesn't seem to be in any danger," he tried to placate her but he noted that Fuji-nee only looked even more incensed.

"Just look at her! She's as pale as a corpse and was freezing when I felt her yesterday!"

He couldn't really argue with that part, of course, telling her that the reason the woman was so pale and cold wasn't because she was an alcoholic but a vampire wasn't something he could really say.

"It is her health," he finally decided to say, "as dad told me… you can't save someone who doesn't want saving."

He noted the flinch that she made at that claim.

"Kiri… Kiri said that?" she honestly sounded unsure with that claim.

"Yeah," he felt a sense of longing strike as he remembered everything his dad had taught him, "it isn't wrong to want to help people… but if they don't want your help then there is nothing you can do for them."

He noted the way her teeth grit in response to that claim.

But it was something his dad had taught him and while it wasn't really applicable in this situation, it could work to get Fuji-nee to drop the matter.

"So I'm going to help her how I can," he declared, "but if she doesn't want help with some things, then I can't force her to accept it."

Fuji-nee looked downcast at that declaration.

He could certainly understand why.

"Anyway, shouldn't you be getting to work?" he asked her, earning a grimace from the woman as she looked at the clock.

"I know… I know…" shaking her head, she rose from her seat with one last thing, "if she wakes up before I get back, try and talk some sense into her."

"Of course Fuji-nee," Shirou responded immediately, not that he expected to succeed when dealing with a Vampire.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The school day passed by at a snails pace for Shirou, though that was probably because throughout it he couldn't stop himself from thinking about the fact his magic circuits were going to be opened later that night.

Maybe he should've just let Sumire open them and dealt with the repercussions instead of waiting.

Eventually though, the day finally came to an end and he found himself rushing home in the hopes of arriving before Fuji-nee and having time to have his circuits opened.

Noting that the sun had already set due to the early nights of winter, he entered his house and immediately called out to anyone who was there.

"I'm home!" it was something he had taken to doing just in case Fuji-nee was already there, but this time it served a slightly more important purpose.

Silence reigned and he frowned as he made his way through the hallway and towards the living room.

Looking inside he noted that it was empty.

He released a frown before moving to search the house and quickly locating where the Vampiric lady was.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked as he moved to sit next to her on the porch, noting the bottle that was sitting next to her.

"It's a nice night, cool, the sky is clear and the moon is full," she said with a soft smile gracing her lips, "perfect for a relaxing drink in the garden."

Looking upon her, he found himself choking back memories.

It reminded him too much of Kiritsugu's passing.

"Are you all right?" her voice cut in and he nodded.

"Y-yeah," he acknowledged, "it's just… this just reminds me of the day Dad died."

Almost immediately he felt a hand land on his head, softly ruffling his hair and carressing his scalp.

"Then how about we go inside?" she said, "being reminded of your family's death is probably not the best thing for a child your age."

He nodded in acceptance before they both rose from their seated positions and made their way back into the living room.

"So… do you want to talk about him?" she asked and he found himself smiling.

"That… I guess that could be nice," he admitted before noticing she had gone to the kitchen and gotten herself a small glass that she poured some of her Sake into.

"Want a drink?" she asked him and he frowned.

"I'm underage," he stated.

"Suit yourself," she didn't try to press the issue but instead just closed the cupboard she had gotten the glass from and returning to the table and taking a seat, "so… what was he like?"

Shirou thought about it for a few seconds before finally deciding where he should start.

"He saved me," he said, it was the most fundamental aspect of their relationship after all, "back when the fire burned down my home and killed everyone around me, all I could do was walk forward… then I gave up…"

Silence continued as she sat silently and he decided he should continue.

"I just lay down to die… and then he found me," he couldn't stop the smile from gracing his lips at the memory, of the smile that adorned his adopted fathers face when he found him… the smile of someone who had just managed to save a single life, "he saved my life and when I woke up in the hospital later, he told me he was a magus and that he was going to adopt me."

He shook his head clear of it before continuing.

"He was a terrible cook," he admitted as his amusement at the fact erupted, "that's why I had to learn to cook for myself, otherwise we'd have just eaten microwave meals and take-outs."

"And what about his decision to teach you magecraft?" she asked and he found himself frowning.

"That was hard," he remembered how long it had taken him before Kiritsugu had given into his pleas to learn magecraft, "he kept telling me that I was better off not knowing it, that it only ever made life worse and that only trouble came with learning it."

"But he eventually gave in," he continued, "that was when he finally taught me the basics… though I never really got them down… so I guess I was a bad student."

"I doubt that," the woman stated with a frown marring her face, "from the sounds of it… he probably decided to pretend to teach you to get you to shut up about it."

Shirou felt his teeth grit at that claim.

He didn't want to believe that his dad had chosen to mislead him when it came to magecraft.

"What makes you think that?" he decided to ask.

"Because teaching someone magecraft without teaching them to open their circuits is like teaching someone how to swing a sword without teaching them about footwork," she declared, "it is _the _most basic requirement of magecraft and failing to do that is proof that he wasn't truly intending on teaching you."

Shirou couldn't stop his hands from clenching at that.

"You said it yourself, you're not a magus," he needed to defend his fathers memory.

"Exactly," he had to blink at her admission, "so the fact that _I _know how seriously he messed up is exactly why I doubt he ever intended to teach you properly."

He grit his teeth.

Kiritsugu wouldn't mislead him like that.

He was relying on him to live up to the ideals he had failed to before he fell ill.

There was no way he'd leave such an important mission to someone who wasn't equipped to fulfil it.

"You're lying," he declared firmly.

"If I'm wrong, then that just means he was an even worse teacher than I expected," she responded and he found himself glaring at her.

"Kiritsugu wasn't a bad teacher," he noticed her eyes widen as he said that, "I'm just a bad student!"

"Tell me, was your father's family name by any chance, Emiya?" her question caught him off guard.

"H-how did you know?" he couldn't understand why his dads last name was important.

"… you've got to be joking…" she muttered and he found himself frowning, "to think, I ended up being taken in by the fucking Magus Killer's kid."

Magus Killer?

"What are you talking about?" he couldn't stop himself from wondering just what she was talking about.

"Emiya Kiritsugu, also known as The Magus Killer, possibly the greatest modern day assassin in Magus Society," she declared and he felt his eyes widen, "I've only heard stories about him from a friend of mine, stories that included murdering his father, blowing up an aeroplane and demolishing a hospital all to get his targets."

He could do little more than stare in disbelief.

You can't save everyone.

That was something his dad had told him… he'd also admitted that he had done some things he regretted but to hear that he'd done things like that…

It didn't make sense.

"Why would he do something like that?" he needed to understand.

"From what I've heard, his father was studying my kind but one of his experiments broke free and ended up killing everyone on an island," she said, "the hospital thing was to drop it on an Apostle, as for the blowing up a plane… that is something I don't know the reason behind."

He couldn't stop himself from staring in disbelief.

The mere idea that his dad had done things like that was honestly scary.

"Still… don't think you understand just what he was capable of," she continued, "he was considered a monster even by some of my own kind… so choosing to sabotage the teaching of a child he doesn't even want to teach isn't outside the realm of possibility."

He didn't know how to feel.

But he shook his head.

"But why would he choose to teach me wrong?" he didn't understand why his dad would do something like that.

"I don't know," she said without delay, "understanding the mind of someone like that isn't something I can do."

He shook his head in disbelief.

"I can't accept that," it was the only thing he could say.

"Then don't," her response made him freeze, "I heard he went into hiding about fifteen years ago and no one has really heard of him since… so it's possible he changed in that time."

Shirou accepted that idea.

The idea that his father had changed and wasn't the same person that had done what Sumire told him he did.

"Now… come to Onee-chan!" he was jerked out of his thoughts as she spoke with an amused tone and patted her lap, "you want her to open your circuits don't you?"

He nodded.

As much as the conversation had cause him to question everything, he knew that opening his magic circuits would be one step closer to being capable of becoming the Superhero his father had wanted him to become.

Moving to her, he released a sigh before repeating the action from the previous night, letting his head rest in her lap as she started to caress his head.

After a couple of seconds he wonder just how long it would take before it hit him.

His body felt like it was on fire, like molten lava was being pushed through his veins.

He was certain the only reason he hadn't cried out was because of his experience with turning his nerves into magic circuits.

Almost as soon as it had started, the pain died down to a pleasant warmth as he _felt _twenty-seven channels of warmth running through him, cooling off as the sudden influx died down.

"And that's it," she said and he pushed himself back up, swallowing a few breaths as he tried to push off the phantom pain that had assaulted him, "now, you should probably rest for a little while."

"Y-yeah," he accepted her advice before sitting at the side of the table to her left and letting himself take a few breathers.

Time passed by slowly as he focused on both his breathing and his circuits, feeling the ease with which he could now activate them and the lack of excrutiating pain in doing so… there was a definite warmth that came with them, but that was nothing compared to the burning that he had endured up until now.

"So… you said you didn't know much about magecraft," he decided to question.

"Yeah, all I really know is that a magus uses magic circuits to channel prana and enact phenomena," she responded, "I don't have a clue _how _they do any of it though… so you'll just have to figure that out yourself."

He nodded in acceptance.

Naturally it wouldn't be easy.

"Plus… you have an innate reality marble, you're going to operate under different rules to normal magi," her declaration made him frown.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Reality Marbles… aren't something natural to humans or… well… _anything _that is a part of the natural order," she declared, "they basically run off their own rules and override the rules of the world itself."

He couldn't stop himself from frowning at that explanation.

"I thought you said a Reality Marble was me?" he asked, even more confused as to exactly what a Reality Marble was now.

"It kind of is… I mean, each Reality Marble is unique and tied directly to the user… they're basically the same thing," she seemed like she was struggling to explain it, "well… at least, when they're innate anyway."

"Are there other kinds?"

"There are artificial Reality Marbles," she responded, "but those usually take a few centuries to create at least… and since they're artificial, they're generally a little less unique than an innate one."

He honestly had no idea what any of that meant.

"Still, the best way to figure out your Reality Marble is probably to look at yourself and figure out who you are," she told him, "I mean, who you are at your core."

He frowned as he considered that.

Then he heard the front door open.

"SHIROU! I'm home!" he pushed those thoughts out of his mind as more important concerns assailed him.

"Hello Fuji-nee," he called out.

He was going to have to start making dinner now.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Fujimura Taiga felt a sense of annoyance well up as she looked at the Drunkard continuing to drink even as dinner was served.

At least she didn't seem to be doing too much to take advantage of Shirou.

If she was then she'd have quite a few words to say about it.

"So Taiga-san," the woman spoke up and she found herself staring at the woman that had invaded her little brothers home, "how well did you know Shirou's father?"

That was a strange qeustion to ask but she considered it wasn't unreasonable given that she had been chosen as his guardian after Kiri's death.

"Pretty well," she stated without hesitation.

"Do you have any idea why he would teach someone something dangerous but ignore teaching them the most basic aspects of it?" she noted that Shirou looked annoyed at that question but she felt a budding sense of familiarity at the question.

"I remember Kiri asking me about teaching someone something dangerous before," she admitted, "it was a hypothetical question about swordsmanship."

She tried to remember exactly what the conversation was about and finally brought the memory to the front of her mind, partly because she had always felt something was off about how he'd suddenly asked her it.

"He said that in a scenario where someone asked to learn Kendo and wanted to do so for the sake of becoming stronger, with the clarification that they had access to a real sword and could use it against actual people, what would I do," she decided to explain the scenario Kiri had presented her with a few years ago, "my answer was to teach them how to swing the sword but nothing else, that way they wouldn't be dangerous."

"What?" Shirou's voice cut in and she immediately faced him.

After all, she'd never heard him sounding so pained before.

Looking at his current state, she saw his skin was pale, his eyes wide in disbelief and his breathing was growing heavier, looking towards the woman that sat at the other side of her, she saw that the woman looked unsurprised.

"It seems I was right," she was about to ask what she was talking about before the answer clicked and her throat turned dry.

Looking at Shirou again, the hurt in his eyes was clear as day as she realised that the 'hypothetical' question Kiritsugu had asked her had clearly been aimed at something Shirou had wanted to learn.

But… but she knew Shirou, she knew he wasn't the type of person who would hurt people… she'd never seen any child as thoughtful and kind as he was.

Sure he could have his moments of snarkiness, but that was just a part of his character.

"What did you want him to teach you?" she had to ask, curious as to exactly what sort of betrayal of trust she was witnessing.

And to think, she had thought that if someone who put their all into this false craft wouldn't feel negative about being lied to… but of course, that was assuming they weren't a child who trusted their teacher implicitly.

Shirou kept silent and she found herself wanting to help him even more.

"You," she turned to the drunkard who simply sighed in response, "you obviously know what Kiri taught Shirou wrong, what was it?!"

It actually hurt that Shirou felt he could trust this woman more than her, I mean she was his sis! This stranger was someone he just met the previous day!

The woman kept quiet for a few seconds and she felt her teeth grit before she was given an answer she had never expected.

"Magic."

She noted the way Shirou's head jerked with a new look of betrayal adorning it.

Confusion seeped through her as she wondered why learning magic tricks would be such a big deal.

"Why would learning magic tricks be so important?" she found herself asking in disbelief.

"Not magic tricks," the woman confirmed before raising her palm up.

She was about to ask what she was talking about when Sake rose from the bottle sitting before her and started floating in the air.

She felt her throat turn dry.

"Magic… well, more specifically magecraft," the woman continued, "but given that normal humans aren't supposed to know about it, it's only natural _that man_ would keep you in the dark."

She couldn't stop herself from swallowing nervously at that.

"Just who are you?" she couldn't stop the question from coming from her throat.

"My name is Sumire, The Twenty-First Dead Apostle Ancestor," the drunkard admitted with a shrug, "in terms you'd understand though… one of the most powerful Vampires in the world right now."

Vampire?

She felt her throat turn dry at that declaration.

She wouldn't believe it if it wasn't for seeing the Sake currently floating completely unsupported next to the woman, but it was right there.

"Shirou… did… did you know?" she had to ask the boy who simply released a sigh before nodding.

"Yeah… I found out after you left last night," his admission made her head feel light.

There was no way this was really happening.

"I will be blunt with you," the woman who had just claimed she was a vampire said even as the Sake returned to the bottle it rose from, "Shirou's adopted father taught him magecraft without the fundamentals… there was a good chance Shirou could have destroyed his nerves doing it the way he did."

She froze at that claim.

Destroyed his nerves?

"What do you mean by that?" she needed to be sure just what she was being told.

"I mean, if Shirou had kept practising his magecraft that way, he could have permanently crippled if not outright killed himself," the woman looked serious and she knew that this wasn't a joke.

It made her feel sick.

The idea that she had potentially put Shirou at risk by giving such an irresponsible answer to what she thought was a hypothetical question was hard to stomach.

That her answer would be different now that she'd learnt more about teaching and how youngsters tended to react didn't matter, she had accidentally put Shirou at risk and that was something she couldn't accept.

"A-are you correcting those teachings?" she wanted to know if this woman who clearly understood the thing Kiri had intentionally mistaught Shirou about was planning on doing anything about it.

"I can't," she felt a pit of despair in her stomach at that declaration, "I'm not a magus, I've done everything I can to help him now, but that's limited to opening the correct channels for performing magecraft… everything else is theory I don't know."

"And what about the damage to his nerves?!" that was the most important part as far as she was concerned.

"That was being done because he'd been taught to use them instead of the correct channels," the woman told her with a shrug, "now that his magic circuits are open he won't have to do anything that stupid anymore."

She felt herself calm at that claim before noticing the woman lifting the bottle of Sake currently set before her and taking a large swig of it.

She almost told her she shouldn't be drinking before remembering, the woman was apparently a Vampire.

It actually explained why she looked so pale, was so cold and Shirou of all people seemed unconcerned with her health.

Letting out a sigh of defeat, she slumped before looking at the young red-head.

To think that she'd just managed to destroy his faith in Kiri, that for all intents and purposes, she'd just revealed that not only Kiri, but even she had unknowingly betrayed him.

"Shirou…" she wasn't sure what to say.

"It… it's fine Fuji-nee," his voice was quiet, but there was a definite sense of loss there, "you didn't know."

She couldn't stop a grimace from erupting at that statement from him.

Just because she hadn't known didn't change her culpability in the situation.

"Sumire… why did you tell her?" his voice cut in and she looked at the woman.

"Because it was easier to than to try and hide it from her," the woman said without any sign of guilt, "besides, Secrecy is a thing only the mages associations, Church and other factions really care about."

"So you don't care about it?" Shirou sounded concerned as he asked that.

"Not really… as long as the people I tell keep quiet about it then I don't see what the problem is," and with that, the woman took another swig of her drink.

"Are you sure you're a vampire?" she had to ask.

"Yep," the woman responded without delay, "but there is a reason I'm known by the Church as 'The Water Bottle' and the other Ancestors always call me 'The Drunkard'."

Well, at least it appeared she wasn't the only one to point that out.

But there was definitely one more thing bothering her about the situation.

"Why Shirou?"

The woman simply looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"He found me when I was planning on hunting," she felt a knot form in her throat at that, "he had an interesting presence so I decided to see what he was."

She had to blink at that.

"Interesting presence?"

"Long story, might tell you another day," the woman dismissed her without another thought.

But she supposed it wasn't beyond reason.

Looking back to Shirou she once again felt the tinge of guilt at the realisation of the damage she had caused him… shaking her head clear, she made her decision.

She was going to support him with everything she had.

Of course, she had already intended on supporting him, but now that she knew more about what had been kept from her until now, she was going to make an extra effort to make everything right.

Now if only she knew where to start.

* * *

And that's all for today.

Shadow Out.


	3. Chapter 3

And I'm back.

Anyway, I just thought I should probably point out something here given how this story is currently going.

The characters thoughts in this fic do **_not_** represent my own opinions on anything. Everything that is happening here that shits on the image of Kiritsugu that Shirou and Taiga have in their minds stems from an incomplete understanding of the man and the reasons behind his actions.

But anyway... on with the chappy.

* * *

Shirou couldn't stop himself from shaking as he sat in his Shed.

It was cold but that didn't matter.

All that mattered right now was that Kiritsugu had lied to him.

He had trusted the man, he had saved his life from the fire, given him a home and had even taught him magic after a while.

Except he hadn't.

The man had outright decided to teach him the wrong way to perform magic, letting him risk his health, forcing him through more pain than he cared to remember… all because he didn't want him learning it.

He had to grit his teeth at that.

There was no way that was right.

And he hadn't even noticed his dad had been lying to his face about that, which made him wonder, just what else had the man been lying to him about?

His trips away, the months he left with no word from him, what had he been doing then?

Did the man even really care about him?

He felt tears welling up at the corner of his eyes as he tried to push back the betrayal.

Did the man want him to die?

Was that why he had looked so happy when he had passed away? After all, Shirou had told him that he would become a Superhero… but if Kiritsugu had actually worked at keeping him weak, then did that mean the man knew he'd just get himself killed if he tried to walk that path?

It was all too much.

Shaking his head, he knew what he had to do right now.

Push those thoughts out of his head and try to see if having his magic circuits opened would allow him to perform the 'spells' his adopted father had taught him.

They had never worked before, something he had always attributed to his ineptitude… but now, now that his magic circuits had been opened, he wanted to see if the spells he had been 'taught' were even real.

Pushing himself from his position slumped against the wall, he walked over to one of the shelves, looking over the junk he had accumulated over the years he had been living with his adopted father, he picked out something that wouldn't be missed if he accidentally destroyed it.

Placing it in the middle of the floor, a decent distance away from everything else in the shed, he pulled the hammer in his head back, feeling his magic circuits flare to life with a pleasant warmth that he hadn't gotten the chance to get used to yet.

Looking at the junk, a burned out motor of a washing machine, he proceeded to form a set of words unique to him.

"Trace On," he went through the motions his father had taught him, moulding his prana via thought, belief in the power of his magecraft, before finally casting the spell.

Almost immediately he found himself consumed by every detail of the equipment before him, every imperfection, the accumulated damage and even a vague sense of it's history as he went through the schematics of it in his head.

He couldn't stop a smile from gracing his lips at that.

At least the Structural Analysis spell had worked just as it was supposed to, which in itself, bode well for the other two he had been taught.

Once he had finally gone over the entirety of the motor in his head, he started seeking out the imperfections, both on a physical and conceptual level, before pushing his prana into them, slowly but surely, as he tried to reinforce those imperfections and restore the motor to functionality.

He couldn't stop himself from smiling as he sensed the spell working, with the previously useless piece of equipment slowly returning to a usable state before he started to identify a stress being put on it by the amount of prana he was putting into it.

Once he had reached that point, he stopped before taking a step back and looking upon his work.

The previously rusted piece of junk that had been beyond conventional repair was now in visibly better condition, a sure sign that the Reinforcement magecraft he had been taught about worked.

There was just one more spell to test out.

"Trace.. On," he was more deliberate in his chant this time, it was one thing to know and improve an object, but to form it out of thin air was another entirely.

Going over the schematics that were still fresh in his head, he moulded his prana to resemble the machine he had just fixed.

In what felt like no time at all, he was facing two motors that were so close to being identical that they couldn't be distinguished by anyone that wasn't a magus, an action that made him release a sigh of relief.

It appeared that what Kiritsugu had taught him wasn't wrong, he'd simply decided to withhold the act of opening his magic circuits.

Which just made him even more annoyed at the man.

Why go out of his way to teach him real spells without teaching him how to actually cast them?

Releasing a breath, he let his circuits cool down.

The cold air of winter should help him cool off his head and clear his thoughts.

Returning to the wall, he slouched down on it once again, his mind still trying to process the revelations he had been struck with earlier in the night.

Fuji-nee may have been partially responsible, but as she said, it had been asked to her as a hypothetical, she didn't know anything about magecraft and didn't know his dad would put that idea into practice.

Plus, she was still young, still training to become a teacher, someone who was new to the field shouldn't be trusted as a fountain of knowledge on the topic but his dad had done so anyway.

That just made him grit his teeth more.

Surely Kiritsugu should have known better than to trust the opinion of someone who hadn't fully matured yet.

Shaking his head clear, he tried to focus on anything good he could think of.

But everything good he could think of concerning his adopted father was accompanied by a negative.

Except for one.

Kiritsugu had saved him from the Fuyuki fire.

… but then, why was he there in the first place?

He felt a lump form in his chest at that question, especially as he remembered what Sumire had told him about the actions the man had taken before then.

Was it possible?

The mere idea made him feel sick but he couldn't stop it from taking root in his head.

Was it possible Kiritsugu had been responsible for the fire in the first place?

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of that thought.

But he couldn't.

Being saved by Kiritsugu was _the _defining moment of his life, the mere thought that the man had been responsible for the death that had erupted around him, and had then chosen to save him of all people completely changed everything he had ever thought after being adopted.

Bile rose from his stomach as he tried to push down that thought.

He couldn't accept that possibility.

There was no way he could.

Such a thing was impossible.

But he needed to know… he needed to find out if there was anyone in Fuyuki who could tell him the truth behind the fire.

But where could he possibly start?

A frown marred his face as something occurred to him.

Sumire had mentioned that the Church was one of the organisations responsible for hiding the existence of magecraft… was it possible that the local priest might know something?

It was worth a shot at least.

Taking a deep breath, he once again tried to push down the bile that threatened to erupt from his throat as he pushed himself back into a standing position.

Tomorrow.

He would visit the Church tomorrow and ask about the fire.

He needed to know the truth.

No matter how painful it was.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from laying awake in her bed as the memories of the day kept themselves worming into her mind.

Discovering that Kiri had betrayed Shirou was not something she had ever even considered possible… he always struck her as a nice man despite his somewhat gloomy exterior.

But now she had to wonder just how much of that was a lie.

Especially after confronting that Vampire about him.

She had heard things she had never even considered to be possible for Kiri to do, the sheer coldness that would be required for a person to do them was beyond anything she could understand.

But the Vampire never pushed the idea that Kiri wasn't a good person… all she ever did was tell her what she had apparently been told by another Vampire.

Then again, the mere fact that the ones who were complaining about him were Blood-sucking Creatures of the Night could say something on its own.

Despite that however, Shirou had clearly been devastated… she wanted nothing more than to comfort him but it was clear she had already done enough damage by giving Kiri the idea to teach Shirou incorrectly.

And despite what Shirou had said, she didn't know if he still trusted her.

She knew she wouldn't if she was in his shoes.

…

…

… It was no good.

She couldn't get to sleep with her mind whirling around like it was.

Getting out of her bed, she put on a nightgown and made her way to the sitting room, immediately taking note that her Grandfather was still up.

"Hiya Gramps," she greeted him, her normal enthusiasm drained from everything that had happened earlier.

"I wasn't expecting you to still be up Taiga," the old man responded and she decided to take a seat across from him.

"I'm… having trouble sleeping," she decided to admit before determining that diplomacy was probably the best course of action right now, "… I have to ask… what do you know about Kiri?"

Her Grandfather raised an eyebrow, clearing curious as to why she was asking but started to answer regardless.

"Not much truth be told… I only really started getting to know him after he moved into the house next-door," his response didn't surprise her, "what I can say is that there were things I noticed that said a bit about what he did before moving there."

She perked up at that.

"What do you mean?" she couldn't stop herself from asking with a frown.

"It isn't normal for a person to put military grade weaponry into storage when they have no history as a soldier," his response made her freeze as her throat dried.

Military grade weaponry?

"What do you mean?" she had to confirm.

"How many people do you know who carry plastic explosives, an elephant gun and a sniper rifle with a thermal scope along with fully automatic rifles?" she couldn't stop herself from gawking at that.

If Kiri had stuff like that, then that just made that Vampire's stories more believable.

That was definitely not something she was happy about either.

"W-why didn't you tell me before?" she had to ask.

"You never asked and you seemed happy not knowing," her grandfather said, causing a frown to form on her face.

"B-but then why are you telling me this now?"

"I'm not stupid Taiga," he told her with a hint of exasperation, "you look conflicted and then ask me about Kiritsugu and you think I wouldn't be able to fit the pieces together?"

She couldn't stop herself from flinching at that.

He did have a point about that.

But… all her grandfather's information was doing was making it more and more clear that the man wasn't who she thought he was.

There was just one last thing she had to ask about.

"Do you know anything else you're not telling me?"

The frown that formed on his face said quite a bit.

"No, is there something else about him you think I should?" he sounded honest when he made that claim… but her grandfather wasn't the type of person who could be easily read, if he was then he wouldn't have made it to the position he had.

"I just want to know…" she told him.

If he didn't already know about magic then she didn't know how revealing it to him could hurt them in the long run.

After all, to hide the existence of magic for so long meant that there would have to be procedures in place to stop people from learning about it and she did not want her grandfather to start looking into things that were liable to get him targeted by magical assassins.

Looking at him it was clear to her that he didn't buy her excuse.

"Taiga, don't take me for a fool," he declared and a grimace tugged at her lips, "if you don't want to tell me then simply say so."

"Sorry gramps… but I think it's something I'm better off keeping quiet about," she decided to tell him and he nodded in acceptance.

"Very well, then I won't pry," he said before turning to a bottle of Sake, "do you want a drink to help you sleep?"

She couldn't stop herself from letting out a grin at that.

"Yes please."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Sumire couldn't stop herself from frowning as her hunger once again cried out to her to feed.

She hadn't expected that Emiya kid to show up when she was hunting, but he just felt too interesting to ignore.

Of course, learning that he was Emiya Kiritsugu's adopted son had been quite the shock… hell, if Riza ever found out about him she'd almost certainly try to murder the kid for what his father had done to one of her subordinates a couple of decades ago.

Still, she didn't think telling her about the kid was the right thing to do.

As much as she enjoyed Riza's company, the kid didn't deserve to be targeted for his fathers crimes, not when it was obvious he was just another victim of the man named Emiya Kiritsugu.

If anything, the betrayal the kid had just discovered was probably worse than death.

Especially given how adamant he had been about his fathers goodness.

Shaking her head clear, she watched as the boy returned from the shed, looking pale and sickly, but she dismissed that.

He might have been interesting but he'd probably be dead in a century at the latest, what was a few decades earlier?

"Cold?" she decided it was worth asking even if it didn't really matter.

"I… I just need to find out something tomorrow," the boy's response caused her to raise an eyebrow.

She wasn't expecting that from him.

Perhaps it was some sort of revelation that had shaken him to his core? It wouldn't be surprising given how much she had shattered his fragile view of the world already.

"Good night," the boy's next words did little more than give her a reason to inwardly smirk.

If he was going to bed, then that meant she had the rest of the night to try and find a suitable snack… and it was early enough that the drunks would probably still be out and about… the biggest issue would be the Church taking note of her victims and sending an Executor over to try and destroy her… but for someone with access to a Marble Phantasm, that wasn't that big of a problem.

"See you tomorrow!" she said, wondering just how the boy would be after a good nights sleep.

It would be interesting to see how the kid bounced back from everything.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Kotomine Kirei went about his daily business as normal.

Tidying the Church, making sure the children in the basement were still alive so Gilgamesh could use his Noble Phantasm freely and keeping an eye on the city as a whole.

It had been a surprise to find out that one of the Twenty-Seven had invaded the city, but so far they hadn't proven to be a problem… if anything, they were actually proving to be an interesting spanner that could change how the next Grail War might go.

After all, finding out that it had spent the past couple of days at the Emiya Residence meant it was most likely interacting with the child Emiya Kiritsugu had adopted.

There was the question of what was going on in there, he only had the general idea of where it was after all, but the fact it was staying there and he had taken note of both the child and his caretaker entering and leaving with no sign of infection meant the Apostle likely wasn't hostile towards them.

There was the previous night, what with how it had proceeded to catch and unwary victim and drained them dry, but checking in on the scene when it was done made it clear that the cadaver wasn't in any position to be identified as a victim of a vampire attack.

Exactly how it had made the victim rot so quickly wasn't something he understood, but it was one less job for him to take care of.

His ears were greeted by the sound of the front door opening, a noise that prompted him to turn and face whoever had made the decision to enter the hallowed halls.

His interest piqued the moment he saw a mop of red-hair on a child, a trait which indicated to him that the boy was the same one Emiya had adopted.

"Good morning child, are you in need of guidance?" he asked, curious as to the boy's reason for being there.

"Uh… I recently heard that the Church is responsible for… certain matters," the boy said clearly uncertain about what to say, "I wanted to know if you knew anything about the fire five years ago."

Well, that was certainly interesting.

Of course, this was definitely a scenario where telling the truth would be the most interesting thing to do.

"Indeed I do," he told the boy, "it was started by a man named Emiya Kiritsugu who was taking part in activities kept secret from the local authorities."

He watched the child as he collapsed into a pew, and had to suppress a smile at seeing a conflicted mess of resignation, disbelief, horror and anger spread across his face.

It would be interesting to see how the child would develop after this, he didn't know how the boy was raised, but it was obvious that Emiya hadn't told him about being responsible for that event.

"Is there anything else you require today?" he wondered if he was going to have to spend more time influencing the boy, but the child took a couple of deep breaths before shaking his head.

"N-no thank you, I just need a minute," the boy said and he offered a false smile of kindness, "take all the time you need child."

And with that, he returned to his duties.

After several minutes, he noticed the boy push himself out of the seat he had taken and unsteadily march towards the entrance, eventually exiting, leaving him alone if not for one particular individual.

"I don't understand why you tolerate that vandals child or the Blood-sucker in this city."

The voice of the Golden King called from the door leading into his living quarters.

"The more characters there are, the more chance for chaos to erupt in the play," he stated to the Servant, "and the influence of the Vampire could prove interesting."

He couldn't stop the smile from gracing his lips at the thought.

How would Emiya Shirou develop now?

Would he choose to follow in his adopted father's footsteps? Would he fall into the path Emiya's own father had trodden? Or would he find his own path, separate from them all.

Only time would tell.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from eating slowly as he processed the information he had received from the priest.

Kiritsugu had been responsible for the Fuyuki Fire.

He wished it wasn't true, but he had already suspected it was the case… so having that confirmed was less of a shock than it would've been if he had simply found out about it out of nowhere.

But it didn't change the fact that Kiritsugu had been responsible for destroying his life… meaning that saving him hadn't been an act of mercy, but more likely, an act of guilt.

Was that smile he had given on that day been because he had saved someone? Or was it because he was happy that not everyone had died because of him?

The thought of it being the latter made him sick.

He had been saved from a disaster by the very person who had caused it in the first place.

And then he grew up idolising that person.

"Shirou? Are you all right?" Fuji-nee's voice called out and he couldn't stop himself from sighing in response.

"Last night I thought of something," he told her, noting that she was now looking at him with a worried expression, "I went to the Church to confirm it… and I was right."

"You went to the Church?" Sumire sounded more concerned by that statement than anything else.

"Yeah… I just wanted to know one thing," he said, "… did the priest know anything about the Fuyuki Fire."

"… let me guess," Sumire's voice cut in and he looked at her, "Emiya Kiritsugu was responsible for it."

"Don't be stupid, of course Kiri wouldn't be responsible for something like that!" Fuji-nee cut in and he felt himself deflate as he realised he was likely going to further damage the image she had of him.

"The priest said he was."

Silence reigned and he watched as Fuji-nee turned to face him, her face slowly turning bone white.

"W-what?"

"He said that dad started it when taking part in secret activities… he didn't say what they were," he told her, before she slumped in place.

Not that it was surprising, despite everything, starting that catastrophe was not something he had even considered his dad being responsible for until now.

"T-that's…" Fuji-nee was clearly just as devastated by the information as he was.

And it made him wonder… was his dream of saving people so he could smile like Kiritsugu had back then been misguided by the man's personal involvement with the fire?

"Well, I'm not surprised," the voice of the Drunken Vampire said with little in the way of compassion, "the man was known as a monster _by _monsters so it's about what I'd expect."

He wanted to defend his father's name… an ingrained part of him still cried out that Kiritsugu was his dad, but he just couldn't.

Everything the man had represented to him was now twisted, distorted beyond repair as the fact that he was an orphan because of him seeped into his being.

What would his life have been like if Emiya Kiritsugu had died before ever coming to Fuyuki?

Would he still have his parents? Would he still live in the home he had before it had been burned to the ground by his adopted father?

He couldn't stop himself from clenching his fists at that thought.

Kiritsugu had taken everything from him and then lied to his face when he was saying he was teaching him something.

He felt his heart beat faster as he considered the matter and his teeth gritted against each other.

Why should he feel indebted to follow his adopted father's dream?

Had that been his goal all along?

He didn't know, all he knew now was one thing.

He wasn't going to be like Kiritsugu.

"Shirou… are you okay?" Fuji-nee's voice cut in once again and he saw that despite her own clear heartbreak at the news, she was pushing it down and focusing on him.

"I… I just need some time to think," he didn't know what he was going to do, but one thing was for certain, he needed to figure out what to do with his life if he wasn't going to kill himself trying to achieve an impossible dream.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from slumping in the chair across from her grandfather after she went home that night.

"What's wrong Taiga?" the man asked and she simply picked up a bottle of Whiskey, an action that caused his eyes to widen in clear surprise.

Opening the bottle, she considered pouring a glass before dismissing that idea and instead simply taking a large swig straight from the bottle, hoping that the burning in her mouth could distract her from the pain of learning that Kiritsugu had been the person responsible for orphaning Shirou in the first place.

"It must be bad if you're drinking like that," her grandfather was obviously grimacing as she took a second swig before releasing the bottle from her lips and slamming it on the table before her.

"Kiritsugu started the fire."

She couldn't contain her disgust.

If the man had simply admitted that he had been responsible for it, then perhaps they could've gotten past it, but to hide something _that _big from everyone, especially someone who had lost everything because of it, was just wrong.

Looking at her grandfather, she saw the shock in his eyes, something which said everything.

Getting her Grandfather to display emotion like that was hard at the best of times.

"That…" seeing her grandfather speechless was a sight she couldn't remember ever seeing before… but she just knew he was considering the implications of the information, "… does Shirou know?"

"He's the person who told me."

His grimace at that was enough to let her know that he understood just how bad that was.

Shirou idolised Kiritsugu, to find out the man was responsible for every hardship in his life was just too much.

The worst part, was that he was reacted so strongly towards only some of the information about how badly Kiritsugu had screwed over Shirou.

"Let me know if you need anything… and make sure Shirou knows that I will be here if he needs me."

She felt a sense of relief at his statement.

She knew how much her grandfather cared for both her and Shirou, so that meant that Shirou would be in good hands if he ever needed help with anything.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

"Trace… On," Shirou muttered as he felt his magic circuits flaring to life.

He didn't know what he was going to do with his life, but if Kiritsugu didn't want him learning Magecraft, then he would make certain he learnt it even if just to spite the man.

Unfortunately, he didn't know where to start outside of the basic spells Kiritsugu had taught him but he wasn't going to give up just because he didn't know much.

Sumire had suggested he look inside and try to figure out something about himself that could be used as a basis for his magecraft, but with his emotions currently sloshing around like waves churning in a […], he wasn't sure what he could find now.

There was too much of himself and his life that had been lost these past couple of days and trying to find himself in that mess was going to be his main priority.

He wasn't going to be limited by what Kiritsugu had wanted from him, but what could he do that would still be good?

Forcing his way through those thoughts, he tried desperately to find something… _anything _that could be of use to him in his magecraft.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally closed his circuits and let the cool air of the shed bring him back to the waking world.

Shaking his head clear of as many of the thoughts as he could, he made the decision.

He would have to sort out his priorities before he continued with his magecraft, there was nothing he could latch onto without first understanding himself… and how could he understand himself when Kiritsugu had moulded him into the form he was now?

He needed to shed his father's influence and find what made him tick without Kiritsugu's meddling.

Taking deep breaths, he made a decision to think back as far as he could.

Back to a time before the fire.

To a time when he still had a family, when he was happy, when the stress of being one of only a handful of survivors of the fire didn't weigh on his shoulders every day… when all the lives that were lost when he was saved wasn't a problem.

He wanted to go back to that time.

But that was impossible.

Kiritsugu had made sure of that by burning down the block, forcing all of those people to die as he was forced to walk forward out of pure instinct.

Clenching his fist at the memory, he once again found himself asking himself a simple question.

Why me?

Why had he been the person to be saved instead of all the other's that had died in the hell that had surrounded him?

And most importantly… why hadn't he tried to save anyone himself?

What was it back then that had kept him moving forward?

What had pushed him to ignore all the others who were burning around him?

And why wasn't that there anymore?

How could someone who had ignored so many cries for help possibly be so focused on saving others?

Who was he kidding.

He knew exactly why he wanted to save people.

Everyone who had died had been someone that might have lived if he had simply had the strength to go towards them… it was his fault they were dead even if the fire had been started by Kiritsugu.

He could have saved them and the regret was what had driven him this far.

Perhaps Kiritsugu had taken advantage of those feelings, but he knew they were real.

Even if everything Kiritsugu had told him was a lie, the one thing he knew for certain was that he wanted to make up for his lack of action then… not because it was the right thing to do, but to help relieve some of his own guilt.

He had to let out a small laugh at that.

What a selfish reason to want to save people.

But then again, was it really wrong to choose to be selfish when the manifestation of that selfishness was to help others?

Shaking his head clear, he let out a small smile as he considered the small amount of progress he had made.

At least now he knew something that was true.

Now he just needed to figure out if there were any other truths about himself that had been hidden by Kiritsugu's actions towards him.

* * *

And that is all for now.

Shadow out.


	4. Chapter 4

And I'm back.

Anyway, on with the fic.

* * *

The days passed by slowly for Shirou as they started to blur into each other.

He was no closer to figuring out just what it was that made him... well, himself, than he had been the night of his revelation.

But he couldn't sit around thinking all day, he needed to practice his magecraft and try to figure out what worked for him, there was no guarantee he would figure out everything before he was too old to really make any progress after all.

That is why he was currently kneeling in his shed, eyes closed and breathing steady as he tried to push deeper.

There wasn't much there, no real feeling beyond a vast emptiness that almost screamed out to be filled.

But what could fill it?

And was that emptiness a product of his emotions or his magecraft? He couldn't tell.

Shaking his head clear, he gritted his teeth as he once again gave up.

It would be one thing if he had an idea of where to start, of how to improve… but after activating his Circuits, his magecraft was functioning consistently, no longer failing him and outside of his experiments with pushing reinforcement to the point where it broke the object, he doubted there was any way he could really improve without learning more basic things.

But according to Sumire, things like that may not work as well as he hoped.

After all, it took a little while but she eventually explained that a Reality Marble was something that most Dead Apostles aimed towards, a magecraft so alien and so advanced that it couldn't be replicated.

The fact he had one already was apparently something extremely unusual and it's nature as a natural aspect of him would mean his magecraft would have functional differences to normal magecraft.

That made him frown.

Was it possible that Kiritsugu had attempted to teach him fake spells but they just so happened to work in conjuction with his marble outside of his expectations? He honestly couldn't tell anymore.

Shaking his head clear, he rose from his seated position and made his way out of the shed and back towards the sitting room.

Opening the door, he noted that Sumire didn't look too good, almost giving off the impression of a corpse that was starting to dessicate.

"Are you okay?" he had to ask her, she had helped him so much over the past five days, seeing her in such a state was disconcerting to say the least.

"Yeah… just not used to staying in places like this for so long," she responded even as she brought her newest bottle of sake to her lips.

"What do you mean by that?" he scrunched his eyes as he wondered what it was about this place that caused a problem for her.

"I live in a castle under the sea," her words pierced his ears and he stared, "salt water does wonders for my skin."

He wasn't sure if she was joking or not, but he decided to dismiss that in order to ask the most pertinent question.

"If you're aquatic, how do you drink underwater?"

"Marble Phantasm," she declared, "keeps the water separate from the booze."

Okay, he supposed that made sense.

However, it didn't change one simple matter.

"So why aren't you going for a swim?"

"I will be," she said before offering him a smile, "I don't normally stay around one place this long… so it's about time I moved on."

His heart skipped a beat.

Moved on?

"You mean," he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, for all the damage she may have done to his image of his adopted father, she had been nice to have around.

"Oh don't worry, I plan on coming back sooner or later, I want to see what progress you've made with your marble after all!" she declared and he felt a sense of relief wash over him.

"Any idea when you'll be back?"

"Nope."

Well, there went any potential plans for a reunion.

"Before you leave," he decided that if she was going to be leaving anyway, he should take the chance to ask an important question, "is there anything else about magecraft you know that I should probably know?"

She blinked.

"Oh, how about Elements and Origins, I know about them," she declared and he found his interest pique. He was certain he'd heard of them somewhere before.

"What are they?"

"Well, a person's element is the type of magic they're most attuned with," she said with a shrug, "but their origin is _much _more important in their daily lives."

He had to blink at that.

"What do you mean?"

"A person's origin is basically the core of their being, a recurring theme in their life they cannot escape," she continued and he found himself sinking into the idea. That was exactly what he was looking for.

"Is there a way to find out what they are?" he really wanted to know if he could find them out.

"Pretty sure magi have their ways of finding it out," she said, "I don't know them but I have my own method for that."

"Can you check what mine are?" he really wanted to know, it could be the key to figuring out his magecraft after all.

"They're sword."

He blinked.

"What?"

"Your element and origin are both Sword, I told you that when I first examined you," his eyes widened as the memory finally came back.

Back then he had no idea what they were so he had just skipped over that information.

Maybe she had assumed he had noticed.

Of course, there was another matter to question.

"And how can you remember that when you're always so drunk?"

"I'm sobering up," she declared, "not enough booze and the lack of water is doing its best to stop me from being drunk."

He had to blink at that.

It made no sense whatsoever.

But then again, she wasn't a human so what should be common sense could easily be something else for her.

"Is that why you're leaving?" he had to ask.

"Yep, I'd be dangerous if I wasn't constantly drunk!" she declared and he briefly considered the matter.

Looking over how sharp and precise she was while constantly in a state of intoxication actually made him wonder just how scary she would be if she _wasn't _in such a state.

"Are you going to say goodbye to Fuji-nee before you go?" he wondered, for all their initial bickering, it appeared that Fuji-nee had actually grown somewhat accustomed to the woman, actually going so far as to have a couple of drinks with her the previous night.

"Yeah, I'm not running away, just going home and then," she stalled as she seemed to think, "then I'll probably stop by Europe, I have a Sheath to deliver after all."

He blinked before smiling.

He had honestly forgotten about that with all the life shattering revelations he'd underwent over the past few days.

"Yeah, you do."

"So, one more dinner before I leave," she declared.

Shirou for his part simply pushed down the thought that she would be gone for a while, it was something he had gotten used to doing while living with Kiritsugu.

So having someone who had only been involved in his life for a few days leave was nothing compared to having to deal with his adopted father constantly disappear and leave him alone.

It would have been nice if she stayed but he wasn't going to push her.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Sumire felt like shit.

She was aquatic by nature and really needed to return to the water.

But little Shirou had proven to be rather endearing during her stay with him.

And despite what she told him, that was one of the reasons she was leaving.

She needed to rehydrate herself properly, had a legendary artefact to return to the Fey and most importantly, needed to stop herself from acting on impulse around the kid.

Outside of the fact that he was a novice and had a naivety ingrained into him by a father that had lied to him about what appeared to be everything, his possession of a Reality Marble and a willingness to ignore the pain of turning his nerves into circuits spoke volumes about his mental state.

A mental state that could lead to him becoming powerful if he ever became an Apostle.

That thought was the main reason she had decided it was time for her to leave.

She was not Sveltan. She would not turn a child no matter how much promise they showed.

Now, after he got older, that was a different matter.

But until then, best to not have to constantly fight the urge to turn him when he was still developing.

Dinner itself was at least tasty, not that she needed to eat, blood was more than enough to sustain her but the kid was a surprisingly good cook. Nothing spectacular but he certainly showed promise if he was already this skilled in the kitchen despite his age.

Though that probably meant that The Magus Killer had used him for that purpose and left him no choice but to learn to cook.

At least the kid seemed relaxed when making meals.

"So Shirou," she decided to confirm her hypothesis, "how did you come to get so good at cooking?"

He blinked in response before giving her his full attention.

"Oh, Kiritsugu tried cooking once," he declared and she listened intently, "I think he was close to setting the water on fire when I stopped him, every meal after that was either microwaved or takeout."

Okay, so that disproved that hypothesis.

"So he didn't force you to learn to cook?"

"No, I was just sick of eating the same things all the time," he sounded annoyed.

"Sorry, I just thought he might have forced you to learn," she attempted to placate him.

"No, I get that now," his response made her blink, "but this is one of those things I taught myself, he didn't ask me to do it."

"That's right," Taiga's voice cut in, "I remember you started learning when he was on one of his trips."

"Is that so," she accepted it without complaint.

"Anyway, onto more important matters," she finally decided to cut to the chase. "Taiga-chan, I'm going to be leaving tonight."

She saw the woman blink before her eyes widened in surprise.

"Eh? You mean you're not going to keep freeloading here?"

"Fuji-nee…" Shirou's voice trailed off in response to rather blunt assessment.

"Nope, have some things to do and I'm not really made for dry land," she declared earning a frown off the woman.

"What do you mean you're not made for dry land?"

"My home is under the sea," she explained, "water is where I am most at home."

"So you're just barging in, ruining everyone's memories and then leaving?"

"Pretty much," she wasn't going to hold it against the woman. "I'll return some day, but for now, I need to leave."

The blank stare Taiga gave her at that declaration said everything she needed to know.

"Don't rush anything."

Taiga definitely wasn't going to miss her.

"Fuji-nee, don't be so hard on her." She had to blink at Shirou's voice piping up to defend her. "If it wasn't for her, I'd still be risking my health every time I try to practice magecraft."

Taiga crossing her arms and pouting only made it clear she didn't want to admit that.

"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you both at some point," she said as she rose from her seat and started stretching, "don't get yourselves killed before I come back okay?"

"We'll try," Shirou's response was almost as dry as she was right now.

Taiga seemed to still be having a mood but eventually relented.

"Goodbye Sumire-san."

"See ya," and with that, it was finally time for her to leave.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

That night, Shirou found himself kneeling in his shed, his magic circuits flaring to life as he tried to focus on the concepts that went behind a sword.

The steel, the edge, the crossguard, the handle as well as the most important part of all.

The Wielder.

Sumire had said his element and origin were Sword, but what did that mean when applied to him?

That would be the biggest question of all.

But in order to figure out anything, he would first need to understand everything he could about the weapons, such as how to wield them, forge them and more.

That gave him something to do the next day at least.

He would have to buy reading material that related to swords if he wanted to progress his magecraft beyond the simple set of abilities he had right now.

Of course, that would have to wait for the next day, it was too late for any of the book stores to be open and he didn't think Fuji-nee had access to anything on the topic.

Shaking his head clear, he turned off his circuits, their now pleasant warmth dying with them quickly.

It seemed simply thinking about swords while keeping his circuits active wouldn't do anything to help him.

Giving up for the night, he stood and made his way out of the shed and back towards the house.

Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from releasing a sigh as he made his way into the Fujimura household.

He had been struggling to figure out just what he could do with his magecraft, going to the library and attempting to read as much as he could on the subject of swords.

But despite all his work, he was still struggling to figure out how to apply any of the knowledge he had managed to obtain.

So being called over to the Fujimura household to spend time with Raiga while he went to watch some wrestling wasn't the best use of his time.

However, he did get along with Raiga well enough that spending time keeping him company wouldn't hurt too much, beyond that it also gave him a little extra pocket money in the process.

So he pushed any thoughts about his lack of progress out of his head.

Moving through the hallway he eventually ended up in the most important part of the house, the reception room.

Since Raiga acted as a Yakuza boss, his home possessed a room specifically for meeting with 'clients', one that was designed to emphasise the clan's power.

And that was where he was going to meet with the old man.

Reaching the entrance of the room, he noted the pair of men currently stood guard.

"Hi, I'm here to see gramps," he declared easily.

Others might have considered it stupid to speak that way to Yakuza bodyguards… but there was a major difference for him.

"Head on in Shirou, the boss is waiting for you."

The major difference is that they knew him personally.

"Thanks," and without any hesitation, he opened the door and immediately froze.

There it was.

Sitting on full display at the side of the room.

An antique of immense value.

A legitimate Heian period kotō.

The sword was ancient, but after taking a single look at it he knew just what he was looking at.

Every single minor detail was ready, waiting for him to call upon in an instant, every nick, every repair and every swing, every aspect of it was flooding his mind.

And he was certain he knew what he could do with that knowledge.

"Shirou-kun?" Raiga's voice cut in and he shook his head.

"Sorry gramps, I just got distracted," he answered, choosing to leave out the fact that his attention was caught by the sword.

"Well, are you ready to join me?" the man asked and he nodded in acknowledgement.

"Yeah, though can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" the old man was clearly interested in what he had to ask.

"Would it be possible to visit a museum after this?"

The old man blinked owlishly at that before offering a kind smile.

"That would be perfectly doable, can I ask what brought this on?"

"I just noticed how beautiful some of your antiques are… I… never really looked at them before," he told a half truth, it was definitely one of his antiques that had caught his eye but Raiga didn't need to know that.

"Ha! Well then, if you want we make make museum visits a regular thing."

Shirou had to smile at that.

The more chances he had to see real swords the better it would be.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

"Trace On."

His circuits flared to life and he brought forth the information of one of the blades that had caught his attention during his visit to the museum.

A simple Katana that had been used by a random Samurai during the Sengoku period.

And without another word, he used those blueprints to project a copy of the weapon in front of him.

It had come out perfectly, its blade feeling as hard and sharp as real steel and it's handle massively over-sized for someone of his stature.

However what he focused on was the sheer strain it put on his Prana reserves.

It was practically nothing.

Screw Kiritsugu telling him Projection was useless and inefficient.

Shaking his head clear, he picked up the blade and started swinging it, attempting to get a feel for it as he simultaneously tried to mimic the movements he had recorded of the Samurai who had used it, while also trying to avoid actually hitting anything with it.

But it was no use.

Releasing a sigh of defeat, he let the projected sword hit the cement floor as he considered the heft of the weapon.

He was too small, it was too large and he lacked the physical might to use a blade like that.

Letting the projection fade, he considered the experiment he had just done.

He could definitely project the weapons he had seen, that much could be said for sure, but outside of that, he didn't yet know what the limits of his abilities were.

Meditation seemed like a reasonable action to take, after all, he had just figured out what was probably the most basic ability of it by sheer accident, meaning the abilities were quite possibly something that would come instinctively given the proper situation.

Which could easily mean putting himself into certain situations might be the only way to truly progress his abilities.

He hoped that wasn't the case, but there was no guarantee it wasn't.

Shaking his head clear, he once again decided to try looking inward, finding himself could still possibly prove an important factor in his progression.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from releasing a sigh as Shirou was once again holed up in the shed to train his magic.

Ever since she had found out about the existence of magic he had started being more open about what he was doing in there and had even outright told her that she shouldn't enter when he's there in case anything dangerous was happening.

She hated it.

The idea that Shirou was practising something that could be potentially dangerous for him was not something she could accept.

But it was clear that he was determined to learn and practise magic.

She wanted to blame that vampire but given Shirou had already been practising it, albeit, in an even more self-destructive way than now, she couldn't.

All the vampire had done was reveal that he was doing such things, not taught him about it in the first place.

"You're still here Fuji-nee?" She was broken out of her thoughts by the voice of the very boy she had been thinking about calling out to her.

"Of course!" she declared, "I don't want my little brother to end up injuring himself without someone to make sure he's okay!"

Shirou let out a small chuckle and she felt a sense of guilt welling up.

How many times had he done something that could've crippled him while there was no one there to help him if anything had gone wrong? She knew Kiritsugu had spent months of the year abroad and she didn't live there, so how much damage could he have done to himself during those times?

She pushed those thoughts down, there was no need to think about such morose things.

"So have you done anything dangerous?" She expected him to deny her with a bored tone.

"I made a kotō out of thin air."

She had to stall at that.

"What?"

"I made a kotō out of thin air."

Okay that wasn't too strange, he had already mentioned the concept of projection already.

"Why a kotō?" That was the part that confused her.

"Because I saw the one in your grandfather's reception room," his statement was blunt but she found herself wondering if she was missing something important in the situation.

"Why does that matter?"

"When I looked at it, I knew everything about it."

That, okay, that was different.

"You knew everything about it?" she had to clarify what he meant by that.

"Everything. What it's material composition is, any imperfections in the blade, wood and fabric," he said and she found her eyes growing wider as he listed off what he could apparently know just from looking at a sword, "as well as the reason it was forged, how it was forged and every action that was ever taken with it since it was made."

Okay, now that had to be a joke.

"Shirou, stop trying to prank me, it doesn't suit you," she told him, her face now likely portraying her annoyance.

The blank stare she received in response said everything.

"You're not joking are you?" It was a ludicrous concept but then again, she had no real idea what magic could do.

"No."

She felt light headed as she tried to ponder the ramifications of someone not only being capable of learning everything about a sword just from looking at it, but being able to store that information.

"How can you remember everything?" She felt it was a legitimate question, the human brain did have a limit on how much information it could retain after all.

"I don't know," his response made it clear he hadn't even thought about that, "but I've memorized about seventeen blades so far."

Wait… what?

How did he have seventeen already?

"How did you do that?" she had to ask.

Shirou simply shrugged.

"I asked gramps if he could take me to a museum after wrestling."

Oh, that made sense.

However, the mere idea of him currently having access to seventeen different swords and even storing that sort of information on all of them was just…

"T-t-t-that's…" She couldn't finish her sentence. It was just too much for her to accept.

"Yeah, it's insane," Shirou admitted and she found herself letting out a sigh of defeat.

"That's not even human!" She declared, storing that much information in your brain was just outright impossible!

"What else have you done?" She really hoped that was everything he had to say, but she prepared herself for whatever ludicrous possibility there could be.

"Nothing yet."

That was a relief.

"But thank you Fuji-nee," his words cut through her relief, "I think you've just given me something to think on."

She suddenly felt a sense of dread welling up inside her at that declaration.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from sitting in his bed pondering those four words Fuji-nee had said to him.

_That's not even human._

He hadn't considered that part before, his brain couldn't retain too much information when analysing anything else for any real length of time, it was always overwritten by other memories so quickly.

But his knowledge of the blades clearly _wasn't _being stored in his brain if that was the case.

Which mean that there was more to him than his body and magic circuits.

Besides, what was is Sumire had told him.

_A reality marble is you._

He was his reality marble and he was a sword.

The swords he had stored weren't remembered normally because they were a part of him, ready to be called upon just like lifting a finger was.

He just needed to learn how to flex the right muscles to do it.

"Trace on."

Focusing inward once again, he thought of his body as he activated his circuits, thinking of his hand and visualising that he didn't have muscles in it, that inside it were the swords he had collected, each one acting as a muscle, the connections between them the nerves.

He felt a tingle in the centre of his palm as his hand started to numb but he ignored it, continuing to visualise his body made of blades even as the tingling expanded and slowly encompassed his entire limb.

Opening his eyes, he looked upon the sight before him.

His hand, no longer pale skin, now the colour of steel as he tried to move it, flexing as he felt the blades rub against each other inside.

The smile that crept upon his face as it obeyed his every command couldn't be stopped.

His Body Was Made Of Swords.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Vivian felt it before she saw it.

That wasn't unusual, as a spirit of a lake it was only natural she would feel the presence of a nexus nearby.

A nexus she had had the misfortune of having to deal with before.

Rising from her lake, she formed herself into a vaguely humanoid shape, the nexus tended to prefer that to speaking to her in any other form.

"Hello Vivi!"

Sumire, a being of a nature similar to her own before she was corrupted by the Ultimate One of the Moon.

To think she had been reduced to a permanent drunkard attempting to drown her sorrow at her infection.

"To what reason do I owe this visit Sumire?" she asked, it wasn't entirely unreasonable for the creature to show up for a chat, but something about her felt… off.

"Oh, can't I speak to an old friend?" the dark haired Dead Apostle asked even as she took a seat with her feet dipped in her lake.

How rude.

"There is something wrong with you," she wasn't going to pretend that she didn't notice, such things were tedious and more hassle than they were worth.

"Nope~!" the response she received was too chirpy to be a lie, but there was definitely something off about her aura.

"Your presence does not feel correct," she declared, silently wondering if this wasn't truly Sumire but some impostor.

"…" the silence said everything.

"Explain."

She noticed the Dead Apostle release a sigh of defeat.

"You're no fun," Sumire's moan made it clear she had hoped she wouldn't notice.

And then she reached towards her chest and grabbed onto something that she had been hiding within herself.

If Vivian was a human, then her breath would've hitched in response to the visage before her.

"Where did you get that?!" she demanded. They had been searching for that object for over a Millennia after all.

"Would you believe I found it inside a young boy who didn't even know it was there?" Sumire said without hesitation, "fun little kid, barely hit puberty and already possesses an innate Reality Marble."

A human child with an innate Reality Marble?

If that was true then the boy would likely be destined for greatness.

"How did you retrieve it from him?"

"I took it out, told him what it was and he _asked _me to give it back to you." Sumire's emphasis on the fact the boy had asked her to return it was not lost on her.

She dismissed that notion.

If the boy possessed a Reality Marble then comparing his actions to those that would be taken by other humans was pointless.

Holding her makeshift arms out, she felt the presence of Excalibur's Sheath press against them, an action that would have serious ramifications for the modern world.

"Should you meet this boy again, give him our regards," she told the Vampire, who simply smiled in response.

"Of course, now, are you up for a few drinks?" the Vampire asked as she held up a bottle of that intoxicating human drink.

"No, I have much to do now," she dismissed it without a second thought.

Those drinks were pointless to her anyway.

"Shame." Sumire looked put out by her statement before stretching. "Well then, I guess I'll leave you to it, see you later Vivi~!"

And with that, the Vampiric Nexus started her journey to leave the area.

Despite everything, all Vivian could think of was that it appeared tolerating the Vampiric woman had actually been a benefit in the long run.

Allowing herself to collapse back into the lake, she shifted, moving just past the veil that separated the Human World from the Reverse Side, Avalon in hand as she entered the Garden.

Rising once again, she looked over the tree that sat before her.

Alaya had failed.

Moving towards the figure, laying against the tree, frozen in time for nearly two thousand years, she took the sheath and pushed it into them.

It was time.

The Once and Future King would walk the Earth once more.

* * *

And that's all for today.

I will admit, I don't know the viability of what happened at the end but I decided to include it anyway.

But anyway...

Shadow out.


	5. Chapter 5

Yo.

Another chappy for y'all.

* * *

Shirou felt his consciousness return to him as he lay on his bed.

His hand felt different from the rest of his body but it wasn't an unusual feeling for him anymore.

A couple of years ago, it would have likely gotten him to panic and look at it in worry, but now he knew exactly what had happened.

His muscles and bones had turned into blades again.

Rising from his position on his futon, he looked at his hand, at how the skin was still intact and had been the only part of it that hadn't been converted in his sleep.

He couldn't stop his lips from curving upwards at it.

It was proof that his conclusion had been right.

His body was made of swords and now that he had started practising it, it was becoming easier and easier to convert his flesh into swords. The bit that would worry Fuji-nee of course, was that he was slowly finding it harder and harder to turn it back into flesh.

But to him, it was just a sign that he was becoming what he was always meant to be.

He wasn't human, not fundamentally, he was a sword and his body was growing more used to the concept as he practised with the conversion process.

There wasn't any issue with turning his limbs into blades, he had practised that enough that it was almost like breathing for him, it was so easy now that he had found himself instinctively converting them without so much as loading the gun in his head.

The issue he had run into, was converting his organs.

He had slowly started practising with less vital organs and found himself mostly functional in doing so, the issue was when he had started on the more major ones.

The human body was a complex cog of pieces that all worked together to achieve an overall goal, so converting one on the outskirts of the machine that regulated minor matters didn't have that big an impact on the rest of his body.

But attempting to convert his heart or lungs was another matter.

He had practised with one lung first, confirming that he could undo the process if anything went wrong before moving onto the other.

Lungs of Steel weren't impossible to use, but they definitely didn't mesh well with the rest of his body since they tended to fail in extracting the oxygen needed for the rest of it to survive. Which is why he had undone the process when he started to feel light headed.

The heart was a slightly different matter.

He had needed to actively focus on keeping it beating in order to pump the blood around his body, which meant it wasn't so useful if he ever wanted to protect it in a fight.

But what annoyed him the most, the one thing that he had concluded kept getting in the way of his experiments, was the one thing he knew Fuji-nee would be horrified if he ever attempted to change it.

His brain.

It was the most needy part of his body and the one thing that kept limiting what he could do when converting his body.

After all, the brain was what he needed to extract oxygen to feed, it was the brain that was hit the hardest if his blood wasn't flowing and it was his brain that was the riskiest piece of himself to consider altering.

Despite everything, the knowledge of the importance of the brain wasn't lost on him, it was the centre of everything that functioned in the body, it was the one part that if he messed up or was wrong about, _would _result in his death.

But it was in his way and he had already come to accept one simple tenant.

His Body Was Made Of Swords.

He was a sword and his brain was getting in the way.

Tonight.

Tonight he would finally risk it.

Tonight was the night he would either get rid of that nuisance, or he would die.

That was something he was willing to risk.

Because he was a Sword and he needed to shed this suit of flesh.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Fuji-nee had finally left for the night and Shirou did what he felt he had to.

He started writing a letter.

It was a simple one, explaining that if she was reading it, then he was mostly likely dead from one of his experiments and that she should under no circumstances, let anyone perform an autopsy on his corpse.

That was the one thing that made him hesitate in this experiment.

The thought of how devastated she would be if he failed made his heart clench, but he had come too far and as much as he hated the man, he still acknowledged the words that Kiritsugu had told him.

_To be a magus is to walk with death._

He wasn't afraid of dying, such a thing was inevitable and failing this experiment would just mean he would die sooner.

But he needed to free himself from the flesh that bound him.

Putting the note on the table, he finally made his way out to the shed, ready for the single most dangerous attempt at magecraft he had ever performed.

However, this wasn't like the bullshit Kiritsugu had fed him, the man had put him on the line by teaching him something that had no chance of success in the attempts at stopping him from learning magecraft.

This was something he knew could kill him but if it didn't and instead it was successful…

If it was a success then that changed everything.

Entering the shed, he locked the door behind him and made his way to the open area before kneeling down and turning on his circuits.

This was it.

He was sure that for something this major he should probably use something stronger than a simple 'Trace On'.

But he had no issue with that.

"My Body Is Made Of Swords."

And with that, he focused on his entire body, every muscle, piece of cartelidge, bone and organ was going to be converted, the only exemption was going to be his skin, because unless he figured out how to create a facsimile of it, losing it like he was losing his muscles could completely eliminate his chances of blending into the modern world.

He continued to focus, pushing the image of everything being made of swords and then…

Silence.

None of the ambient noises that normally struck his ears could be heard, prompting him to open his eyes.

Blackness.

There was nothing.

No noise, no light, no smell or taste… all he could feel was the presence of his body and the pressure exerting against his knees and feet.

He attempted to move and could tell that at least his arms were responding, slowly but surely he focused on the presence of his body-parts as he tried to gain his bearings.

Taking a moment, he considered the situation and a sudden rush surged through him as the realisation struck him.

It worked.

He didn't know if he verbalised the aria, but a focus on the words 'Trace On' and a quick application of Structural Analysis brought the whole shed into his head.

The feeling was incredible!

There sheer area he could analyse without the limitations set in place by his brain was beyond anything he had considered.

He still couldn't hear anything, but that wasn't the point.

He had done it.

His brain was no longer an issue.

Emiya Shirou, could no longer be declared human.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The rest of the night went by quickly for Shirou as he reversed his experiment with quite a bit of reluctance.

He had to figure out how to hear while in that state but that would require an understanding of how the senses worked in the first place.

Which meant he would have to study them in relative detail in order to approximate a method of hearing that could work in whatever state he was currently in.

He also quickly made sure to destroy the note he had addressed to Fuji-nee just in case the experiment had failed and he had perished, it wasn't needed anymore after all.

However, at least he knew he had to make a visit to the library the following day.

Maybe he should also look up how microphones work, it was not guaranteed to work, but it could give him inspiration for how to make his new form function properly.

Shaking his head, he shoved those thoughts to the side as he made sure everything was in order.

It was getting late and he had just had a new breakthrough, getting some rest for the next school day wouldn't go amiss.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga made her way into Shirou's home, more than ready for a good breakfast.

He was really something else when it came to cooking, constantly growing despite his focus on both his studies and magecraft.

Not that she really knew what he _did _with his magecraft, all this talk about 'Reality Marbles' just made her head hurt.

She was also certain he was doing some dangerous things during his practises, he seemed far too reluctant to tell her certain things and even seemed to be making things up instead of telling her the truth.

It really made her worry.

She didn't know what she'd do if she came in one morning and found him dead.

Cry was the obvious answer, but that was the bare minimum.

"Shirou! I'm here!" she called out as she entered the hallway before quickly proceeding to the sitting room where she saw Shirou standing in the kitchen cooking breakfast.

And then she froze.

It wasn't normal for him to be smiling so genuinely.

"Shirou? What happened?" she asked, her curiosity piqued at the happiness he was displaying.

"Ah, it's just that one of my experiments worked," he told her and she felt herself frowning.

"Which experiment?" she wanted clarification, he wasn't exactly forthcoming with what he did these days after all.

"…" he went quiet for several seconds before finally releasing a sigh and looking her in the eye. "You'd be better off not knowinng."

That statement made her throat go dry.

The only reasons he could possibly have for saying that were either that he had done something horrific to someone else, which was just not in Shirou's character, or the consequences were potentially lethal for him.

"Shirou, you've been doing something dangerous haven't you?"

He released a sigh before nodding.

"Yeah."

She felt her heart twist at that admission.

"And did you even _think _about how _I'd _feel if something happened to you?!" she demanded, earning a nod of acknowledgement from the boy.

"Yes," his response was given without inflection, "honestly, you're the only reason I waited this long to try it."

She froze at that.

"What?"

"It is something I _had _to try," he told her, "if it failed then I would've died, but success, success meant too much to me."

She almost felt like she was about to have a panic attack at his statement.

He would've _died _if he had failed?

That, that was just too much.

"And how do you think I'd have felt, finding you dead in your shed?!" she felt almost like getting Torashinai just to whack him over the head for that.

"You'd have been prepared," he said without delay, "I left you a note for if it failed."

She stared at him.

He had even gone so far as to leave a note just in case he had failed?

He was that sure it was going to kill him if he failed that he would leave a note about it?

"What were you even doing?!" she demanded, she wasn't going to take no for an answer this time.

He looked at her, met her eyes before visibly relenting.

"I was converting my entire body into swords."

She blinked.

Converting his body into swords?

She hadn't heard him say anything about that before.

"What do you mean converting your body into swords?"

I've known for a few years that I can change my muscles and bones into swords," he told her, "I've practised on less important organs before but last night, I decided to turn _everything _that wasn't skin into them."

She took a few seconds to process that.

"Y-you mean you even changed your heart, lungs and brain?!" she couldn't stop herself from crying out, earning a nod off the boy.

She couldn't stop herself from staring at him.

He had not only done something so stupid, but somehow also managed to survive it.

But, but that didn't make sense!

"How could you function without a brain?!" she couldn't comprehend the idea.

It was simply too ludicrous to be true.

"Because I am a sword." His response made her freeze. "I am my Reality Marble, which means that this body is just a cage to stop me from becoming who I'm supposed to be."

That, that was wrong.

That way of thinking couldn't be considered human.

How could he so easily declare that his own body was a bad thing?

If he had been corrupted by some overly zealous, spiritual cult that believed in some kind of higher form then she could understand, but they generally considered _everything _physical to be a bad thing.

Shirou seemed to just consider _his _body specifically to be a problem.

If only that Drunkard was still here, maybe she could get some idea of what was going on with him, but she still hadn't returned since she left a couple of years ago.

"Shirou," she hesitated as he looked at her, "I think, I think we need to let you see a psychiatrist."

His expression turned blank.

"No," he didn't even take a second to think it over, "I understand you're worried about me, but psychiatrists don't know anything about the supernatural world, they can't understand the concept of me being something other than human."

She flinched at that claim.

She hadn't even considered that he was losing a grip on his humanity.

He had always seemed like the same, kind and helpful little brother she had always known.

It just made her heart twist even more than it had already been.

She wanted to help him.

But…

But if what he was saying was true, then he wasn't exactly _wrong_.

There was no way a human could survive without a brain but apparently he had managed to do just that.

Perhaps, perhaps she should just accept that she didn't know _what_ he was and leave it at that?

"Is there anything you need help with?" she decided that if he was already so far down this path, it was her duty to support him, to try and make sure nothing too bad happened to him despite her lack of power.

He offered a warm smile.

"Do you know of any good books on how the senses work?"

She could only blink in confusion at that question.

"What?"

"When I was made of swords, I needed to use Structural Analysis to identify anything around me," he explained, "I mean, to put it simply, the only sense I had that still had any functionality was touch, though, that was more just identifying pressure than anything else."

Ah, that made sense.

Swords weren't designed to pick up light or vibrations or scents after all.

Though if Shirou could figure out how to turn his body into blades, she would just have to hold onto the idea that he'd be able to figure out a way to replicate those senses given the right knowledge.

And so, she decided the only thing she could do was tell him.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself from releasing a sigh as he considered everything the books told him about how the senses were little more than interpretations the brain made of the environment around a person.

It made sense but the issue was that everything he read made one thing painfully clear.

He would have to figure out exactly how to process the information in a way that worked with whatever he had instead of a brain.

Which meant first understanding just how his consciousness functioned in that form.

It would definitely be a long term research project, but he was certain he could figure something out, it simply meant that he would have to keep more thorough notes of his research than he had previously done.

After all, recording it all could help him figure out any patterns in what his tests revealed about him.

And if he could figure out how his body of blades functioned, then he could figure out how to interpret the information around him.

At the very least though, he could still use Structural Analysis in place of eyesight, an action which actually gave him a clearer image of everything around him.

But it wouldn't hurt to figure out a method of replicating the human senses he was used to.

Pulling out a pen and notepad, he started listing everything he could think of.

His soul was still attached to his body, meaning his brain wasn't necessarily responsible for keeping it attached, so the question was, how did the brain interpret senses in a way that the soul could understand.

Because his ability to feel his body despite the lack of senses showed that the soul could understand things like that, an assumption that had only been heightened by his ability to visualise everything he was analysing.

Considering the situation, he came to single conclusion, he would simply have to subject himself to sensory deprivation again if he was to understand how his new body worked.

"My Body Is Made Of Swords."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Weeks passed by slowly for Shirou, the sensory deprivation he was subjecting himself to was something that the books he read had said could lead to psychological breaks if the sufferer was subjected to them for long enough.

But that was assuming the victim had no other option for studying their environment and wasn't actively subjecting themselves to it in the search for a higher goal.

He just wished he was having _some _luck with the experiments, instead he was just growing accustomed to the form and the silence that ensued.

At least his notes were coming along nicely as he continued to hypothesise about his magecraft and how it operated, even if he was no closer to his goal of mimicking senses.

Releasing a sigh of annoyance, he once again opened his notes and started reading through them.

Still nothing that could possibly be used to replicate his senses.

Shaking his head, he started to consider other possibilities.

Did he really _need_ to replicate his senses mechanically?

Everything he had was attempting to find a way to create new sensory organs that could pick up everything. But what if there was another way.

He taking a pen he started to jot down more notes about his abilities as a whole before freezing.

"My Body Is Made Of Swords."

His chant was still the same and just as had happened over the weeks, he found his transformation occurring faster as his body turned into little more than a giant collection of blades.

Focusing on the area of his eyes, he focused on the blades that made them and started to read.

The answer had been obvious all along.

For the first time, he truly _saw _with a body of swords.

He had been able to record the history of a blade just by looking at it, but instead of simply looking at it, structurally analysing the blades of his own body and focusing on the current history was enough.

Everything that the swords were subjected to from outside he body was now clear, not just sight but also sounds.

He would have taken a breath, but he didn't need to.

At last his senses had been supplimented.

Next up, he had to test to see if he could still talk while in this form.

And so he formed lungs, filled them with air from outside before attempting to form words.

Only wheezing came out.

But at least he had made progress.

Now all he had to do was discover a way to replicate skin with blades and learn to talk with a steel throat.

Then, then he would finally be his true self.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from feeling tired.

She had assumed that Shirou turning his body into swords would be an easily visible thing, but it turned out she was wrong.

The only thing about him that noticeably changed was that his eyes looked like they were made of steel and the inside of his mouth took on a greyer tinge.

But then again, the boy was just learning how to achieve his desired results so it was questionable just how far he could take it given the time and effort he was currently putting into his project.

Of course, attempting to talk to him before seeing those eyes made it hard for her to tell if he _could _hear her or not.

He was still the same kid she had known for so long, but it was tiring to not be sure whether he could hear her or not.

Walking into the sitting room, she noticed him preparing the table before looking at her, his eyes that solid grey indicating he was currently unable to hear her. He had most likely noticed her enter due to that Structural Analysis spell he had mentioned.

Seeing his eyes revert back to having an iris and pupil, she finally proceeded to speak.

"Good morning Shirou."

"Morning Fuji-nee," his response held a more upbeat tone than normal, forcing her to blink.

"Did you figure it out?" it was the most obvious thing that could make him happy but if he had figured it out, he'd probably be staying in that transformation.

"Yeah, now I just need to figure out how to speak with a steel throat and ways to replicate a more natural appearance," he declared and she couldn't stop herself from gawking.

He couldn't speak while transformed into blades?

"That, that's," she froze, unsure of how to respond to his news, "good?"

"Yeah," he probably chose to ignore her hesitation even as he continued setting the table for breakfast, "I'm going to visit the library later, I'm going to have to find more anatomy books if I want to get my voice right."

She considered the possibility of him just dismissing any issues with the sound of his voice as a byproduct of puberty, but then again, it wasn't guaranteed he'd figure it out before it ended.

Who was she kidding, if he kept on at this rate he'd probably be a bundle of blades twenty-four seven by the end of the year.

It was honestly rather scary.

First a vampire showed up and now Shirou was turning into a metal man.

She wouldn't be surprised if the next thing that happened was her grandfather turning out to be a Werewolf or Mummy or something.

And here she was, still perfectly human and being exposed to these impossible existences.

They said ignorance is bliss, but she never really understood it until she found out the truth of Kiri.

She shook her head clear of those thoughts.

They were pointless to dwell on when there was a massive meal in front of her.

She just hoped things would calm down soon.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou closed the book on human biology once again as he jotted down notes in the shed.

There was so much to consider when attempting to form words, so much that it was possible that figuring out how to speak with a body of blades wasn't guaranteed to work.

But he had thought something similar to his senses and now they were mostly functional.

The real question was whether he could sync up his body to automatically form appropriate syllables without direct interference from him.

Of course, that is assuming there wasn't some method that he was completely overlooking he had last time.

"Trace on."

Without a second thought, he started analysing the structure of his throat, trying to figure out a method to keep it functional even if it was made of swords.

Then his lips fell as a thought occurred to him.

"My Body Is Made Of Swords."

Focusing on his throat, he forced the blades to form as small as possible before taking a break and attempting to speak.

He tried forcing out the sentence, 'I am Emiya Shirou' but only wheezing came out. Continuing to pay attention to the blades in his throat, he focused on how rigid they were and how even with his most forceful breathing, they were barely moving.

Placing his knuckle in front of his mouth and his shoulder on the desk he was using, he considered the situation.

The blades were too rigid and heavy for him to move with just his breath, which meant he had to find something lighter than them, something that could also be recorded in his reality marble but didn't suffer the same issues when applied to a situation like that.

He needed a new material.

Or did he?

Focusing back on his vocal cords, he attempted to do something slightly different.

He switched out the blades that were more appropriate for arming swords for ones that he had seen on Rapiers, it meant he needed more but it didn't hurt to try.

Breathing out, he once again attempted to speak.

"_My name is Emiya Shirou," _it barely worked, feeling slow, grating and with a tone far less functional for a human than most would accept, but it was a step in the right direction.

It was the first time he had said anything successfully with a vocal chord made of steel.

Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to make it louder and more human sounding.

Perhaps he should practice altering the shapes and properties of what he was manipulating?

Kiritsugu hadn't taught him anything like that, but if he used Reinforcement as a baseline for the spell, he might be able to change the shape and density of the blades in his body.

And it wouldn't hurt to know how to change things anyway.

With those thoughts in his head, he pulled a piece of junk off the shelf and started practising.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

*Clang* *Clang*

The sound of steel clashing reverberated through the lush, empty fields near a lone tree and a lake settled just under it.

But she was more focused on the blade she was facing against.

One wrong move and she would lose, even with instincts as strong as hers.

A black blade struck against the golden edge of her blade and she found herself open as her opponent placed their blade at her throat.

"Are you refreshed?" the transient form of the woman before her asked and she nodded in acknowledgement. The spar had indeed given her a chance to refresh her mind.

"Indeed I-"

"No." She almost flinched at the tone the Lady Of The Lake took with her.

Focusing on what she had learnt since awakening in Avalon, she moulded her words carefully.

"Yes, I am refreshed."

It had been so convenient when she had been summoned by the Grail, especially with how it imparted all the necessary knowledge of the modern world directly into her head.

A small amount of it had managed to ingrain itself into her mind, but she hadn't truly had long enough for it to become permanent.

Which meant she had one and a half thousand years of catching up to do in her own language.

The crash course she was receiving was not particularly pleasant on her head.

But at least sparring helped her clear it, refreshing her from the tiresome memorisation and comprehension.

As The Lady had told her, it was pointless for her to return to the Earth if she didn't even know how to talk in a manner legible to the modern world.

"Then we shall return to your studies."

She knew better than to defy the commands of the faerie before her, she was the one whom had not only raised but also trained Sir Lancelot in the art of combat.

Simply thinking of the knight made her heart clench as memories of the Fourth Grail War bubbled to the front of her mind, of seeing the great knight reduced to a single-minded beast intent on fighting her.

Shaking her head clear, she moved to follow the Lady, ready to return to the tedium of her studies of modern English.

But she would at least need to know some English.

Despite what the Fae told her, she knew there was only one thing she could truly do once she returned to the Earth.

And that required finding a way off of Britannia and to Japan.

A plane would be the most likely course of action but boarding one without resources wouldn't be easy, then there was the matter of the requirement she would need of finding a mage that could help her set everything up for when the time came.

Just because she wasn't a servant anymore, didn't mean her wish couldn't still be granted.

She just needed to take the role she wasn't used to in the next Grail War.

She would need to become a master.

* * *

And that is all for today.

Now, for anyone who wishes to complain about Shirou's full body of blades, I have my own reasons for feeling it is plausible even in canon.

If you have a problem with that... realize I don't care.

This story was inspired by two things which came together and formed a simple thought that I decided to carry through with.

So with that out of the way...

Shadow out.


	6. Chapter 6

And I am back.

First things first...

I have edited some parts of the previous chapters that people have consistently brought up issues with in reviews (as in, I was getting these complaints pretty much every other review).

So there are a couple of changes that have been made.

Now... on with the fic.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

When Emiya Shirou woke, it was without the usual grogginess that accompanied normal humans and he could tell straight away that something annoying had happened.

Moving into a seated position he immediately checked the skin on his hand.

It was pale but there was no rotting, that was good.

Pushing prana into his skin, he reinforced it, attempting to reinvigorate it after his time inactive.

The prana he had recovered from his rest was enough to sustain the skin, but there was a limit to how much he could use in a day before he couldn't repair it effectively.

He couldn't wait until he figured out a way to make fake skin that didn'st look uncanny.

Shaking his head clear, he stood, the concept of tiredness had been foreign to him for nearly a year now, one of the advantages of having a body made of blades. The disadvantage was that he was constantly turning into swords while he slept these days, which meant that no blood got to his skin while he was sleeping.

Focusing as hard as he could, he found himself once again struggling to turn his body back into flesh before he finally gave up.

It wasn't worth the effort.

He would just have to put more effort into creating a false skin for himself.

Making his way out of his bedroom, he immediately made his way towards the bathroom, he would likely need to wash himself so his dying skin wouldn't smell horrific for his first day of High school.

There was a good chance that everything could go well, but he wasn't going to rely on anything like that, instead he would just have to do what he could to try and make his stay at high school as simple as possible.

Other people always tended to find him off-putting these days anyway.

It was probably the eyes, despite his practice at trying to make them look as natural as possible they were still off, looking just artificial enough that it caused a reaction from anyone who look at them.

By the time he had finished washing himself and getting dressed in his new uniform, it was still early enough for him to prepare breakfast, not that he needed to eat properly; from what he could tell he gained no benefit from normal food and survived mainly off of simply absorbing ambient Mana into his magic circuits.

But even that was hard.

As much as he tried to figure out ways to overcome the prana deficiency he had developed as he started subconsciously turning himself into blades, he simply didn't know enough to make up for it.

Clearing his mind of those thoughts, he proceeded to cook breakfast, practically all of it would be eaten by Fuji-nee but it was nice to have her around even if she was basically a walking dustbin when it came to food and therefore, his finances.

Time passed by as he kept his attention focused on the food he was preparing, waiting for his surrogate sister to come through the front door and announce herself as she always did.

She always made his mornings livelier than they would be with just him.

"SHIROU!" the sound of the door slamming open and Fuji-nee crying out made a softness spread through him, "is breakfast ready?!"

"Not just yet Fuji-nee, it'll just be a couple of minutes," he responded as the woman moved into the sitting room and took a cushion at the table.

Looking at her, he noted that she was dressed in a manner far more formal than he was used to, though that could easily be because she would be attending the Entrance Ceremony and was required to look professional for the event.

"So Shirou, are you looking forward to starting High School?" her question caught him slightly off-guard.

"I suppose so, though I don't know what it'll be like until I'm there," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

The grin she gave him told him she knew something he didn't.

Which most likely meant one thing.

"… you're my homeroom teacher aren't you?" he asked rhetorically, earning a cough from the woman who looked away in clear surprise.

"W-well who else did you think it would be?" her question made him stare blankly at her. Not blinking was so easy when your eyeballs were made of steel after all.

"Anyone who _wasn__'t _my legal guardian," he declared after she broke eye contact with him.

The huff she gave made it clear she wasn't happy with that particular declaration.

"When is breakfast going to be ready?" her attempts at changing the conversation were rather obvious but he decided to humour her anyway.

"When I decide it's ready."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The rest of the day passed by painfully slow as far as Shirou was concerned; the fact that he was around non-magical individuals most of the day was only making it harder for him, what with how he had to provide a constant stream of Prana to his skin in order to not be called sickly.

So when the end of day bell rang, he rose from his chair without a second of hesitation while the rest of the class started talking, clearly already starting on forming their social circles.

Of course, he had more important interests than preparing for a normal Japanese adulthood.

He was a weapon after all.

Moving into the hallway, he did a double take upon seeing someone else leaving their classroom alone.

It was a girl with dark hair tied into twin-tails, wearing the standard uniform for girls in the school.

It was the expression of surprise she wore while looking at him that caught his attention the most.

Clearly she hadn't expected to see anyone else leaving so early either.

"Oh, hello," she seemed to compose herself quickly as she spoke up.

"Hello… it's Tohsaka-san isn't it?" he asked for confirmation, he was certain he had heard about her before even coming to the school.

"Yes… and you're Emiya-san aren't you?" she responded quickly.

"Yeah, you're leaving pretty early," he decided to enquire, earning a sigh off the girl.

"I have things I need to do at home," she answered, "and what about you?"

"I didn't get enough sleep last night," it wasn't a lie, he didn't get enough sleep to fully recover his prana reserves, but she didn't need to know that.

"Ah, well… I hope you get enough tonight to make up for it," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, I hope you get everything you need to done as well," he responded as he started to walk towards the school entrance, with the girl moving with him.

"It's all family stuff, it feels like it never ends," she spoke and he nodded.

"I'm sure you'll finish it at some point."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Rin almost had to laugh at Emiya's reassurance.

The idea of her managing to finish her family's work within her lifetime was ludicrous.

Reaching the Root of Existence via Thaumaturgical processes was not something that could be figured out over night after all.

But he didn't know that so she kept her amusement to herself.

"Thank you Emiya-san," it was a shame the boy was just a normal human, from what she had seen of him he had quite the stubborn streak.

"So, how was your first day?" he asked her, causing her to offer him a wry smile.

"What do you expect? It's only the first day so there is nothing worth worrying about," she declared.

"Except starting up your social circles," his response was spoken quickly but she dismissed it.

"My family has connections abroad, so I'll probably end up moving there," she explained.

His nod surprised her with how quickly he did so.

"What country?" his question made her frown.

"England."

"So there's not really any point in you wasting your time with extracurricular activities then," his tone made it clear it was a statement and not a question.

She felt herself relax slightly at that.

He clearly had some idea of how Western societies focused more on grades than clubs.

"Yeah, my grades are what is most important here," she admitted.

Walking out of the front gate, she found herself wondering how long they were going to follow the same route.

"So Emiya-san, where do you live?"

"In the North of Miyama-cho," he answered quickly, "you?"

"Southwest Miyama," she told him.

It meant they would probably still have a little while before they went their separate ways.

"So, do you have any hobbies?" it wouldn't hurt to find out more about him while they were both walking home.

"Well… outside of cooking, I like to visit museums when I can," she had to blink at his response.

"So you're interested in history?" she hadn't expected that.

"Actually… I just like the swords," she let out a snort of amusement at that.

"Typical boy," she declared, earning a shrug off him.

"What about you?" he asked back, "do you have any hobbies?"

She was about to deny having any but quickly pushed that aside, it wasn't really fair for her to ask him if she wasn't prepared to tell him.

"… Jewels… I collect jewels," she admitted.

"That… is a pretty expensive hobby," he said with a hint of concern in his tone.

"It's not so bad, my family has been collecting them for hundreds of years," she informed him.

"So you got into it because of your… mother?"

"Father actually," she answered.

"Anyway, this is my turn," he spoke as they reached a crossroads, "it was nice talking to you Tohsaka-san."

She offered him a smile as she stopped.

"Yeah, it was nice to talk to a boy without them asking me out."

His response made her heart sink.

He simply chuckled at that.

It hadn't even crossed his mind to ask her out.

"I guess that must get pretty annoying," he spoke up and she simply offered a smile.

"Yeah… still… it was nice speaking with you Emiya-san," she decided to not let it get to her, "see you tomorrow."

He blinked at that before offering a smile of his own.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow Tohsaka."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from worrying as she watched Shirou set out a meal for her.

His skin once again possessed a pallor so sickly that if he had been anyone else, she'd have called a doctor about it the moment she saw it.

But she knew the reasoning behind the issue and calling a doctor would just cause more complications than she could care to imagine.

After all, how would a doctor react to finding out Shirou didn't breath or even have a beating heart?

She was certain that Shirou passed as clinically dead and had done so for quite some time, but it was still so hard to see him in such a state.

"There you go Fuji-nee," he said even as he sat the food before her, "I'm going to go to bed."

"Goodnight Shirou," she said before watching the boy leave the room.

She had to grit her teeth and exert all her willpower to not hit the table.

This was all that Vampires fault.

If she hadn't taught Shirou what he was doing wrong then he'd still be healthy.

Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm herself.

She didn't want to disturb Shirou as he rested to recuperate his strength.

The fact he apparently gained no benefit from eating anymore only made it even harder to accept.

All he could do was sleep to try and minimise his magical expenditure while recovering it.

But he had made it clear to her.

Eventually he'd lack the strength to maintain his skin and would have to figure out a substitute for it at some point, and even then he'd still have trouble keeping himself intact.

If only there was another way for him to recover his strength.

She would help him with it in a heartbeat.

But there wasn't any way she knew of that could help him.

And so, she simply started to eat.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The night was dark and it was now time to strike.

Rising from the river, she made her way to a somewhat familiar park.

This was where she had met that kid.

She was pretty sure he would be starting Japanese high-school soon, so it would be the perfect opportunity to check up on him and see how he was doing.

Plus, he might even be old enough for her to turn now if he proved talented enough.

She just hoped she had gotten the year right.

Shaking her head, she started making her way along the street, trying to remember exactly which house it was that he lived in.

"Now… which house is little Shirou's…" she muttered to herself as she reached an area that looked familiar.

Then she felt it.

"Ah, there it is," she had honestly forgotten about the bounded field surrounding the property due to how subtle it had been, but now that she felt it act on her, she felt a vague familiarity with it.

It didn't act against her, she probably managed to fulfil the requirements for it to not respond but the simple change in space was still a good indicator of it's presence.

Moving along the road, she found the entrance to the property and made her way to the front door.

She was about to knock when she saw the button waiting next to the door and remembered that knocking was outdated these days.

Pressing the button in, she heard a ringing within the building and waited.

Eventually the door opened to reveal the boy's legal guardian… if she remembered correctly her name was…

"Tiger-chan!" she called out before offering the woman a hug.

"Get off me!" the woman cried out almost immediately as she started trying to struggle out of her grip.

After a couple of seconds she released the woman who started trying to get her bearings.

Without a second thought, she moved past the woman before calling out.

"Shirou-chan! Guess who's come to say hello!"

"Shirou has gone to bed," Tiger's voice spoke up from behind her.

She had to blink at that before looking at a clock.

"What? Why has Shirou gone to bed so early Tiger-chan?"

"First, my name is _not _Tiger," the girl said with irritation clear in her tone, "it's Taiga."

"What's the difference?"

"Why you…" the woman was definitely annoyed now.

"Fine fine… but seriously, why is Shirou already in bed? I'm pretty sure it isn't that late," she asked once again.

"Shirou…" Taiga trailed off before finally releasing a sigh, "he isn't healthy."

That didn't sound good.

"Do you know what's wrong?"

"It's his magic," Taiga spoke without a second of hesitation, "it… is causing him problems."

"Is that so," that wasn't good.

If his magecraft was proving problematic then there was a good chance she might not know how to fix it.

But at least she knew others who might be able to help.

She just needed to learn what the problem was first.

"Go and bring him out, I'll need to look him over if I want to figure out how to help him."

The woman was definitely not happy with that command but eventually relented even as she moved to the cupboards to search for some Sake before taking a seat at the table.

It was only into her third cupboard that she heard it.

"Hello Sumire, it's been awhile," Shirou's voice spoke up and she turned to face him.

He looked relatively normal outside of his skin that looked almost as pale as an Apostle's, though he was certainly taller and had filled out pretty well for his age.

"Shirou-chan! It's been a while hasn't it?" she greeted, "now… where's your booze?"

"Fifth Cupboard on the right," his response was made nearly instantly and she moved to the appropriate cupboard and found the stash.

"Great!" and with some Sake now in hand, she made her way to the table where Shirou and Taiga had already taken their seats.

After making herself comfortable she finally spoke up again.

"So Shirou-chan, Taiga-chan here said you weren't healthy because of issues with your magecraft," she asked, wondering if he had any better idea.

"Kind of…" he trailed off, his voice reverberating ever so slightly with the words, "it's more an issue with my Prana Supply."

She raised an eyebrow at that.

"I can't recover enough prana over night to keep maintaining myself," his further explanation only confused her more.

"Give me your hand," she commanded as she held her right hand out over the table.

The moment he gave her his hand, she froze.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Uh… do you know what's wrong?" Taiga's voice spoke up and she shook her head before removing her hand from Shirou's.

"What the hell are you?" she couldn't believe it.

"Uh… I'm a sword?" he sounded confused but she found herself catching her jaw as it fell slack.

"That's…" she didn't understand.

"Wait, don't you know what's happening to Shirou?" Taiga asked, clearly annoyed but she could only shake her head.

"That's impossible," she declared, earning confused looks from both other occupants of the room.

Emiya Shirou, the boy she had become curious about due to sensing both the presence of Fae and a Reality Marble… had _lost _his original body.

"What do you mean impossible? I've been like this for a while now," Shirou explained, his face blank as he said so.

"I have only seen _one _other being achieve what you have… and it took _him _over a thousand years to reach that point," she stated firmly.

Silence fell at her declaration.

"Wait.. If you now someone else who has done what Shirou has, then you'll know how to fix it right?" Taiga asked, causing her to sigh in response.

"Depends on what you mean when you say 'fix it'," she released a sigh before continuing, "if you mean reverse what he's done to himself… no, I have no idea how to do something like that."

She could see the woman's eyes widening before falling as despair seeped into her expression.

"If you mean fix the Prana issue though… well, that's pretty simple," she continued.

"How?" Shirou was the one who asked this time.

"Bodily fluids are rich in Prana, so all you need to do is consume some," she declared with a shrug.

"Bodily fluids?" Taiga sounded weary as she repeated the phrase she used.

"Mainly blood and sexual fluids," she clarified, causing the woman to choke in response, "they're Prana rich so simply consuming them should help you recover your prana."

"That's… going to be difficult," Shirou's response caught her off guard.

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

"Well, I don't think anyone is interested in me sexually and I'm not prepared to kill people for their blood," he answered with a frown marring his face.

"It isn't that hard, all you have to do is hire a prostitute or find an animal to drain if you don't want to drink a human," she told him.

"Oh, so animal blood works too?" he seemed to perk up at that.

"Yep," she confirmed for him before smiling, "still… I have to say I am impressed… I was thinking that you might be fun to take as an apprentice if you had some talent… but you went and turned yourself into an Apostle without my help."

"Wait! What do you mean he turned himself into an Apostle?!" Taiga cried out, "I thought Apostles were Vampires!"

"Kinda… it is actually applied to any being with Vampiric traits that isn't under the control of another," she answered, "and since Shirou needs to drain the Prana out of others to sustain himself now… he fits the description."

The moment she said that, she saw the way the brown-haired woman's face started to lose it's colour.

Obviously the fact that Shirou could now be counted among the ranks of Vampires wasn't something she had ever considered before.

Shirou for his part simply appeared to be thinking.

"So little Shirou… what do you think about becoming my official apprentice?" she asked, wondering just how he would respond.

"No!" Taiga's outburst was somewhat predictable, but she didn't truly have any say in the matter.

"What do you mean by apprentice?" Shirou asked the important question.

"Shirou!"

"It means I will be responsible for introducing you to our kind and teaching you everything you need to know to survive among us," she explained even as the urge to take a drink started to well up inside her.

"I will be exposed to them sooner or later anyway won't I?" he asked her and she nodded in acknowledgement.

"It will be very hard for you to hide your existence for long," she informed him, "I wouldn't be surprised if whichever magus supervising this area already knew about you to some degree."

Shirou for his part simply looked surprised by that.

"Magus supervising the area?" he asked, causing her to shrug.

"There are usually magi who oversee areas all over the world," she explained, "they tend to keep an eye on all supernatural beings in the area to make sure nothing is happening that could risk the secrecy of magecraft."

"So… what do you say Shirou-chan? Will you become my apprentice?"

Shirou for his part simply looked her in the eyes.

"It will be nice to actually be taught something about the supernatural for a change," his response was clear and she found herself offering him a smile.

"Great! Now, first things first… I'm gonna have something to drink and when night comes, we can go hunting!" she exclaimed before opening the bottle and finally getting just what she had been waiting for.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from feeling a pit form in her stomach.

It was hard enough to consider the fact that Shirou was being called a Vampire _by _a Vampire, let alone think of the fact that said vampire was now trying to steal her place in Shirou's life.

Then there was the matter of Shirou being taken out hunting later.

She knew that Shirou would only go after animals, he wasn't a monster after all, but it was still hard to imagine him going out of his way to harm anything.

But… but it was necessary.

It was either that or become sexually active and she wasn't sure she was ready to accept him doing such an adult activity.

Everything was just going so badly and she didn't know how to deal with any of it.

She would just have to push those thoughts aside and act like nothing was wrong… something that might be easier to do after Shirou starts getting his 'prana supplements'.

And a frown found its way onto her face as she watched Sumire acting so close to Shirou despite how long she had gone away for.

"Hey! Sumire!" she called out, causing the woman to turn to face her, "you aren't intending on taking advantage of my little brother are you?"

"Maybe."

Why that incorrigible…!

She had to calm herself down.

"New rule! You are forbidden from perverted attacks on Shirou!" she declared firmly.

"Jealous?"

She could only splutter in response.

"Dammit Fuji-nee…" Shirou sounded exasperated by the whole ordeal, "nothing like that is going to happen."

"Oh come now Shirou-chan… don't say no just yet," the drunkard interrupted.

"Sumire-" Shirou was cut off.

"Call me Onee-chan now," the oldest in the room commanded almost immediately, earning a sigh off the boy.

"Do I have to?"

"You're my apprentice now and I want to make the most of it," she answered.

"Fine then…" Shirou clearly gave into her demands before continuing, "Onee-chan, we are not going to have sex."

"Oh I know, but Taiga's so much fun to tease," the woman responded without delay.

Taiga couldn't stop herself from cringing at that.

Fun to tease?

And with that, she felt a sense of dread as the realisation that Sumire was going to have all the time she wanted to tease her.

What did she do to deserve such a fate?

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The forest South of Miyama was nearly pitch black as the canopy blocked out what little moonlight there was in the sky.

But that didn't make much difference to Shirou.

Light was only really important when a creature was using it's eyes to see but he simply analysed the area surrounding him.

"So.. Where to find something you can eat…" Sumire spoke with a soft tone, clearly meant to not startle the wildlife.

Shirou for his part was aware of several deer, a few Tanuki, boars and squirrels all within half a mile of their current position.

"Can you sense the wildlife?" he asked her, causing the ancient vampire to blink.

"Of course I can, did you really expect me to be unable to?" she sounded legitimately confused at the idea.

"No, but I don't know everything you can do, so I was just asking to make sure," he confirmed for her.

"So, can _you _sense anything?" she asked him and he nodded.

"Yeah, a few deer, some Tanuki, several boars and too many squirrels," he declared.

"So that would mean your range is about half a mile," she concluded and he blinked, "not bad for one so young."

"Ah, thanks," he said before continuing, "so… what am I going to be hunting?"

She smiled at him, "the Tanuki."

He had to blink at that.

"Why the Tanuki?" he would have expected the deer to be the best source of blood in the area.

"Because of folklore," she started without delay, "the fact that Tanuki have so much folklore and infamy surrounding them makes them richer in Prana even if they're nothing compared to their ancient counterparts."

Shirou had to frown at that.

"So… things with more folklore are better for getting prana from?" he found himself somewhat surprised by that.

"Generally… though there aren't that many creatures left with such a connection to the Reverse," her response made him frown.

"Reverse?"

"The Reverse Side of the World… it's where creatures of myth went after the age of gods," her response only made his frown deepen.

"Su-" he noted the way she was now giving him a glare, "_Onee-chan_," the glare vanished, "you are going to have to sit me down and explain a _lot _to me."

She simply blinked before offering him a smile.

"Of course… of course… where would you like me to start?" she asked.

"At the dinner table," he started, "and from the beginning."

"Well… I guess I'll just have to wait until hunting is over won't I?" she said, "now… let's see how well you hunt down a Tanuki."

Releasing a sigh, he shot off to catch something to eat.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou couldn't stop himself as he felt the blood sliver through the gaps in his blades, flowing into his body and most importantly, being absorbed with every passing moment.

Already he could feel the Prana flowing from the crimson liquid and into his own reserves, filling him up further than he had been in nearly a year.

Once his reserves were full, he let the creature leave his mouth.

His mouth filled to the brim with blades of varying sizes, each one as sharp as the last.

"So… how does it feel?" Sumire's voice cut in and he found himself looking at her.

"I never realised just how bad it felt to be in that state," he admitted.

Her response was simply to smile at him.

"Good… are you full?" she asked, prompting him to nod.

"Yeah… first time in… a long time," he informed her.

"Good… in that case… it's time for your entrance exam," her words confused him.

"What do you mean?" he felt himself worrying as his instincts started to scream at him.

"What I mean, is try your best to survive," and with that she rose her hand and he felt the skin covering his cheek split, "if you are to be my apprentice, I need to know how strong you are."

And then the attacks came.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The sky was grey as the clouds blotted out the Sun.

She was finally home.

But even then, it wasn't truly home.

Her home didn't consist of large brick houses and neatly trimmed gardens. Nor did it consist of the hard black roads that appeared everywhere.

Her home existed in a much simpler time.

But she was at least in the country of her birth.

Specifically, a city now called 'London'.

According to that infuriating mage that got himself trapped in a tower, the city was home to one of the main branches of the Mages Association, an organisation called 'The Clock Tower'.

She clenched her fist as she thought of that name.

It reminded her too much of the last time she had been in the world of the living.

Taking a deep breath, she forced those thoughts out of her mind.

She needed resources if she wanted to achieve her goal, and the Clock Tower would be the most likely place to gain such things in the modern era.

While The Lady of the Lake may have wanted her to return to her role as King, she had other goals.

She was going to win the next Grail War and have her wish granted.

One way or another.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Sumire had to admit, Shirou was performing below her expectations.

But, she had a feeling it was because she had set her expectations too high in the first place.

The boy was displaying nothing more than a body made of blades, controlled regeneration, projection of blades and enhanced strength, speed and durability.

They were all traits that were very useful, but there was still a limit to how powerful something could be with such a limited array of abilities.

At the same time though, those abilities had been developed while he was suffering severe constraints due to his prana reserves and when he was exceptionally young.

So she couldn't say for certain that he wouldn't grow later.

"That's enough," she finally declared, seeing him standing with a missing arm and a little under half of his head missing.

Seeing him like that reminded her of the one time she'd gotten into an argument with Nrvnqsr Chaos.

"How did I do?" he asked, speaking as easily as he had before losing so much of his body.

"You performed below my expectations," he grimaced at that, "but I'm not used to dealing with people as young as you… so don't take it personally."

The half of his face that was left expressed a sense of relief at that.

"So… is it normal for Apostles to survive with half a head?" his question made her blink.

"Oh no, there are some but it isn't normal," she decided to be perfectly clear on that, "you're durability is impressive… it's your attack that needs work."

His expression morphed into one of understanding.

"Yeah… it's just that my Reality Marble just let's me record swords… that's pretty much it," the boy admitted and she couldn't stop herself from releasing a sigh at that.

"Well… we can try and work on your offence later… for now… you should probably focus on healing up," she said, earning a nod from the boy as the blades started to extend from the 'injuries' he had sustained, rapidly moving to fill out the missing parts of his body before his face took on a look of complete focus and the blades on the outside started to slowly morph into new skin.

She almost had to laugh at that.

He had lost a limb and half his head and yet it wasn't regrowing the missing parts that he found hard.

It was restoring his skin.

"Now hurry up and find something to eat, I need to get more to drink."

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that is all for today.

Shadow Out.


	7. Chapter 7

And I'm back.

Anyway... this chapter ended up being a Zero Shirou Zone due to just how much is happening outside of Fuyuki.

Anyway... let's get on with the chapter.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

The streets of London would have left her flabbergasted had she lacked her own experiences in the Fourth Grail War.

But as it stood, she had managed to retain enough knowledge of the world to adapt to the city with little effort.

Admittedly, walking through the street with clothes that were currently a few thousand years old and in dire need of condemning was an awkward experience, especially with how all the pedestrians steered clear of her.

Then again, even the cleanest of lords in her time were likely dirtier than the average modern human.

But back then, they didn't have easy access to clean water, soaps or heating.

So a bath was something that wasn't taken often.

Shaking her head clear of that thought, she watched as a car she had previously walked past roughly four times earlier overtook her once more with the changing traffic lights.

Whoever was behind the wheel of that car was most certainly not like Irisviel, she would have had to jump off the pavement if they had been.

None of that changed one simple matter though.

She had been walking nearly all day and still had not found what she was looking for.

Vivian had informed her that The Clock Tower had a sprawling underground campus, along with several buildings that were visible above ground too, however she didn't know how to access the institute without blowing a hole in the ground and she doubted that would put her in their good graces.

A rumble sounded and she grimaced.

She had not eaten since she had left the Reverse Side of the World and she had gotten nowhere.

To make matters even worse, she lacked any form of financial backing to pay for anything.

As much as she may have hated the idea…

She was simply going to have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

Glancing around she soon noticed the presence of a teahouse, certainly not the best place, but it was at least something.

Upon reaching the door, she entered and took a look at the patrons.

Most were pretty nondescript but she found her attention lingering on one.

Something about the man simply felt… familiar.

And then he looked up and their eyes met.

The way the man's eyes widened, the way he took a nervous gulp… and the way he started pinching himself told her that the man was definitely not like the rest in the shop.

Without hesitation, she made her way to the table he was sitting alone at.

Now it was just a matter of keeping herself speaking English and not returning to her native tongue.

"Hello, you look as if you know me," she stated, wondering just what the man was going to do now.

"T-this is impossible," the man spoke with his panic clear in his voice, "y-you shouldn't be capable of manifesting this far from the Grail."

Manifest this far from the Grail?

Looking at him once again, she started placing details of his appearance before coming to a single conclusion.

"Are you… Waver Velvet?" that the man could grow even more tense was impressive but it didn't change one simple fact.

This was perfect.

She let a smile grace her lips.

"It is good to see you again," she admitted, "I would like to ask for your aid."

The man definitely didn't look happy but she could see him steeling himself before speaking once again.

"First I need to know how you're here and what you're after," she noticed him glancing around the area, clearly he was worried about people overhearing but there was a limit to how private they could get in such a public space.

Regardless, she could answer one half of that question there.

"I am looking for the Clock Tower," she told him and she noted that he looked even more nervous at that, "I need a way back to Japan so I can participate in that competition once again."

"If you want to go back, then why leave in the first place?" he asked her and she released a sigh.

"Unfortunately, that is not something I can share with you here," she informed him.

He looked like he was about to speak once again before the very rumbling that lead her there appeared once again.

Waver Velvet blinked.

She felt her cheeks heat up.

"Ah… my apologies… I… haven't eaten in a little while," she tried to hide her embarrassment at their conversation being interrupted by her stomach.

Waver Velvet for his part, simply stared at her in complete disbelief before releasing a sigh.

"Fine…" he relented, "my King wouldn't want me ignoring a hungry acquaintance."

She had to blink at that.

His King?

Oh… of course…

Shaking her head clear of memories of the Great Conqueror, she watched as the man got up and made his way to the counter.

"Come on, I will pay for you this time… just don't expect it after."

Well… it seemed her gut had come through for her once again.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

She could do little more than release a quiet moan as she ran the reddish brown liquid through her hair, letting it fall back to the tub as she felt it flowing lightly against her scalp.

Licking her lips she tasted the fluid and without a second of hesitation, raised her hand to allow more of it to drip, this time into her gaping maw.

"I see you're still having your little blood baths Rita."

She released a sigh as she looked towards the entrance of her bathroom to see the figure of one of the few beings in the world who could freely break into her castle.

"Oh? And for what purpose have you decided to visit today Sumire? Are you ready to fulfil our agreement?" she asked.

"Nope~" the singsong way the Water Bottle answered her made it clear she had other intentions.

"Did you come to raid my wine cellar?" she asked without even trying to hide her frown.

"Nope~" the response was a bit of a surprise but she probably wouldn't get anywhere like that.

"Then why are you here?"

"I came to tell you that I did something you always said I was too stupid to do," the drunkard responded and she couldn't stop herself from staring at her blankly.

"You are going to have to narrow it down… a lot."

The pout that her long time acquaintance gave her did nothing to sway her.

"I took an apprentice."

She had to blink.

Sumire had taken an apprentice?

"That poor child," she couldn't say anything else, the mere idea of having an airhead like her; one who didn't even know how to teach even the simplest of Magecraft at that, as a master was actually worth her sympathy.

However there was at least one thing that she needed to ask about.

"And _why _exactly did you decide to take on an apprentice?"

The smile her longtime senior gave was honestly happy.

"He's amazing! He's not even two decades old and already has a reality marble," her eyes widened at that.

Someone under two decades old already possessing a reality marble was such a rare occurrence it was practically unheard of among humans.

However…

"Then you should probably leave him to someone more knowledgeable than you," she stated, "a reality marble is not a simple magecraft and an idiot like you will likely just get in his way."

The predatory smirk that Sumire offered at that made her raise an eyebrow.

"I left him a few years after opening his magic circuits and telling him he had one," the drunkard said before letting out a mirthful chuckle, "I just went back to see how he was doing and what do I find?"

"A mutilated wreck in need of healing?" she offered.

"Nope~!" the way Sumire was now nearly laughing outright made her frown.

Then the woman looked her dead in the eyes, her own offering nothing but complete seriousness.

"He's already lost his original body."

She took a couple of seconds to process that.

"What?"

"I left him a couple of years and he's already like Nero."

She could do little more than stare.

It was only when the soft dripping of blood onto the floor next to her bath started penetrating her daze that she shook her head clear.

She wanted to declare that the twenty-first was joking, that there was no way such a thing could be possible… but her eyes had said everything.

This was serious.

If Sumire was right, then her new apprentice would already qualify for the Rank of Ancestor simply due to how hard it was to kill someone with no vital organs to destroy. Of course, that was all dependent on exactly how his reality marble manifested internally; it was possible his marble wouldn't be as effective at surviving or regenerating as Nrvnqsr's was due to it's nature, but the possibility was still there.

Plus there was the matter of Gaia's rejection likely forcing him to expend prana to keep himself manifested, something that would simply increase as time passed and his mystery grew… meaning he would likely need to start supplementing his existence with blood out of necessity alone.

It actually appeared as if her murder-soul-mate had actually done something genuinely important for a change.

"Well… I suppose I can understand why you chose to take him as your apprentice if that's the case," she decided to admit.

If she had been aware of someone with such potential then she wouldn't hesitate to take him as her own either.

"So what's his name?" she asked.

"Shirou," the answer was a single word and she raised her eyebrow in response, "he has… issues… with his father."

Oh… of course.

The boy was young enough to still have living family and if he was already developing into a self-made apostle it was only natural he'd come into conflict with them.

So the idea that the boy would be withholding his name to keep his heritage under wraps made a certain amount of sense.

"I see…" she acknowledged, "so… is there any other reason you're here?"

"Nope~" she had to release a small chuckle at that.

Trust Sumire to tell her before anyone else.

Regardless, even if she was the first Apostle to be told of this turn of events, it wouldn't stop her from letting the others know.

Sumire may have been an airhead but this was too important to keep quiet about.

"Well… I should probably head back to Fuyuki and get some sleep," the drunkard said and she had to withhold a smirk.

Fuyuki.

The city that the Heaven's Feel Ritual was located in.

She had been tempted to participate when she had been younger… the possibility of obtaining a cup that could be used to produce an unlimited quantity of blood to bathe in sounded like it would be a useful trinket.

But she had decided against it.

There was just something about slicing open the throats of the humans that was so satisfying, she would rather do that instead of waste her time on a cup of near limitless prana.

The fact that Fuyuki was the location of her apprentice also meant that it would likely be the Tohsaka or Makiri heir… probably the Tohsaka… Makiri Zouken would probably still exist as the patriarch of the Makiri family if his whole shtick with those disgusting 'worms' was anything to go by and she couldn't see him having a problem with a Dead Apostle appearing in the family given how close to being one himself he was.

"Of course, I am sure I'll see you again," she bade the drunkard who offered her one more smile before vanishing into thin air.

She took a deep breath.

Then released it.

Why did _Sumire _of all people have to be the last user of Teleportation in the modern era?

She was usually too drunk to even make good use of it?!

Releasing yet another sigh, she shook her head clear of those thoughts before continuing to wash herself in the blood that was now starting to congeal.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

She couldn't stop herself from staring at the face that sat before her.

Waver Velvet had taken her to an isolated location and even called in what was clearly reinforcements… though she doubted they were meant to fight her given both were young girls.

The youngest looking of them was a blonde with a hint of mischief clear in her eyes, wearing a blue dress that looked suitable for showing both wealth and aptitude.

The other however…

It was like looking into a mirror.

Whoever it was, they had a face nearly identical to her own, the only real difference between them being that the girl had less vibrancy in her hair and skin, giving off an impression of it being drained of colour.

"Who is this girl?" she wanted to know.

Why did this girl look so much like her and Mordred?

Waver Velvet released a sigh before answering.

"From what I found, she was prepared to act as a vessel for your spirit."

… what?

She didn't understand.

Why would anyone go out of their way to prepare a girl to act as a vessel for _her?_

Not that it even mattered in the first place.

With her possessing her own natural body, there was no reason for her spirit to choose that girl over the very container it had been born in.

"Now that I've answered your question… would you be willing to answer my own?"

She nodded.

It was only fair to be open with him given what she was going to be asking for.

"How are you still manifesting so far from the Grail and why did you even leave Japan Saber?" he asked, instantly drawing the attention of the two girls who were with him, their eyes wide in obvious shock at what he had just revealed.

And she knew that his question was perfectly reasonable but she needed to correct him on one thing.

"I am not Saber."

"What?" his face showed clear surprise.

"I am not Saber, I am the King of England, Arturia Pendragon," she declared firmly. As much as she knew using an alias was the smart thing to do, she was not a servant anymore and a King shouldn't hide their identity like a coward.

"I was indeed the Saber in the Fourth Grail War, but back then I was sent forward in time by Alaya for the purpose of obtaining the Holy Grail and granting my wish," she explained, seeing his eyes widening with each point she made.

"You… made a deal with Alaya?" he sounded far more worried now.

"The deal was simple, I obtain the Holy Grail and gain my wish, and in exchange I would serve it… however… after Emiya Kiritsugu forced me to destroy the Lesser Grail, I found myself waking up in Avalon, apparently someone returned my sheathe to the Fae and they restored me to life."

She saw him go quiet as he clearly started to think about what she had just told him.

"Excuse me master… but I don't understand," the girl who looked just like her declared, "if she was being sent forward in time… then why did it stop?"

She agreed with that question herself, it wasn't something that she had ever figured out.

Merlin would have probably known but that man was still trapped in that tower and Vivian had forbidden interacting with the man.

"It could be something as simple as there not being another chance for her to be summoned to the Grail War," Waver Velvet declared and she had to blink, "if there isn't a potential future even further down the line for her to be sent to then she would probably have been left in a state of Limbo."

She had to admit, what he had said made at least some level of sense.

And the possibility of her not being summoned without Avalon as a catalyst made some sense.

However it caused her to frown.

What could possibly happen in the future that would prevent another Grail War?

Or was it possible that her own destruction of the Lesser Grail had damaged the ritual beyond repair.

No.

She mustn't think like that.

The Grail must still function.

She needed it to grant her wish.

"So…" Waver Velvet said, knocking her out of her thoughts, "you want my help to return to Japan, so you can compete in the next Grail War and gain your wish, does that sound about right?"

She nodded.

"And why should we help you?" the blonde girl asked and she found herself getting the impression the girl had a grudge against her.

"Reines… don't," the man warned.

"You said it yourself, this woman was Saber," the girl continued, "why should I help the servant of the man responsible for destroying my family's crest?"

"Do not associate me with _that man_," she commanded.

It was one thing to be disliked for her own actions… but to be judged by the fact that she had been effectively enslaved to Kiritsugu Emiya was another matter entirely.

"I will tell you this," she continued, "should I _ever _meet that man again, he will die before he even has the chance to speak."

The girl looked like she was trying to put on a brave face but she could see the cracks forming.

"Even so, what do we have to gain from aiding you?" the girl continued, clearly unnerved but still trying to hold strong.

She took a deep breath before pushing aside her pride.

"You shall gain my aid should you require it," she declared, "should you decide to not aid me, then my services will go to whoever _does _grant me the aid I seek."

Within reason at least.

She wasn't going to say that she wouldn't aid herself with monstrous magi despite her moral standards getting likely being the sort of thing that would get in the way of her helping many magi.

Hopefully Waver Velvet wouldn't call her out on that.

"Meaning you could end up working against us if we turn down your request now," Waver said.

She nodded in acknowledgement.

The girl didn't respond to that, an action that spoke volumes for her self-control.

"Very well," the girl agreed, "we shall aid you… however, I expect your aid with my family's issues."

She hoped that these issues weren't anything too immoral.

Maintaining both her pride as a Knight and her newly formed alliance would be on the line.

"Then we are in agreement," she declared as she held out a hand to shake on it, something that the girl accepted, "if I may so ask, what is your name?"

"Reines El-Melloi Archisorte," the girl responded and her eyes widened.

El-Melloi.

So that explains exactly why she held a grudge against her.

But for now, she would just have to be grateful to have gained a foothold in the Clock Tower full stop.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Rita Rozay-en took one more look to make sure her crimson red hair and porcelain white skin were free of any specks of blood after drying herself off from her daily bath before proceeding to a specific room in her castle.

It was time to see if Sumire had actually told everyone about her apprentice or not.

Reaching the room, she opened the door and looked directly at the large crystal currently placed on a pedestal in the centre of the room.

Most Ancestor Castles had a room with a similar layout and purpose.

After all, before the days of Trans-Atlantic flights, they had needed some method of communicating quickly and crystals set up to resonate with each other were a simple enough method for most Apostles to achieve.

Admittedly, Sumire couldn't but she could Teleport and swim at a ridiculous rate so it was irrelevant to her anyway.

Starting up the crystal she connected it to every other receptacle and waited.

After all, it wasn't like these crystals were carried with the owners and despite the loud buzzing that indicated it was active, there was no telling just how far each member would have to move to reach the room.

Slowly more faces started to appear until eventually only a few were left yet to appear.

Schweinorg and Enhance were a given, especially since there was no telling where Zelretch would be and Enhance didn't even have a castle, instead spending most of his time wandering the world and hunting down other Apostles.

Others such as the ORT, Crimson Moon Brunestud Primate Murder, Alcatraz, The Forest of Ainnash, TATARI and The Dark Six never appeared due to either being dead enough as to be unavailable or simply not communicating beyond instantly murdering anything that went near it.

Another couple failed to appear among the crystal, including Sumire but that was to be expected given she wasn't in her castle.

The last to not make an appearance was Nrvnqsr Chaos… however she recognised the person who was there in his place.

Louvre, the collector of Mystic Codes and current heir to Chaos should he fall.

"Now that enough of us are here to answer your call…" Ortenrosse spoke up firmly, "why have you called us?"

"Have any of your heard the news about Sumire?" she asked.

"The Rose Prophecy hasn't spoken so she's obviously not dead yet," Altrouge Brunestud declared with a bored tone that accentuated her youthful features.

She wanted nothing more than to slit her throat open and bathe in her blood but Svelten and Strout would easily kill her if she ever attempted such a thing.

"She has taken an apprentice," she decided to declare bluntly.

"Ouch, I almost feel sorry for whoever she turned," another youthful member spoke with a sense of joviality in his tone.

Merem Solomon was yet _another _member of the Twenty-Seven who could easily crush her if she ever tried fighting him.

One of the disadvantages of simply being a traditional Vampire with a naturally high aptitude for magecraft.

The sheer number of monsters that existed among their ranks was genuinely ridiculous.

"She didn't turn him," she responded.

That seemed to draw quite a bit of attention.

"According to what she told me, he is self-made… despite being under two decades old and achieved it by internalising his Reality Marble to the point he lost his original body."

Silence fell upon the group at that declaration before it was broken.

"You lie."

It was only natural Louvre would accuse her of that.

The magus had attempted to form a Reality Marble for a few hundred years now.

To find out that a mere child had not only managed to form one, but also manifest it just like his own master would likely be the greatest insult he could receive.

"I am simply informing you of what Sumire told me," she answered him, "I have not confirmed the veracity of this news myself."

"Come now, we all know that Sumire wouldn't lie to Rozay-en," the man with a bird's head declared calmly, "besides, the drunkard probably couldn't come up with a lie like that."

"Then I suppose that means we'll have a race to see who can recruit him first," Altrouge sounded almost excited.

But then again, it had been so long since someone so interesting had appeared.

And Sumire remained out of the competition between Altrouge and Ortenrosse, meaning this "Shirou person" was clear for the taking.

"Now Rita… was else can you tell us about Sumire's apprentice?" Altrouge asked and she shrugged.

"All I can say is that his name is apparently 'Shirou' and he has family issues," technically she could tell them one more piece of information if she wanted to but for once she was going to give someone a head-start on the hunt.

"Well then Trhvmn, may the best leader win," Altrouge said to Ortenrosse, showing a complete lack of respect by referring to him by his first name.

The glare the 'pinnacle of vampirism' gave her in response told her just how much it infuriated him.

"Well then, I believe that's all I had to say," she declared, "farewell."

And with that, she turned off the crystal.

Resetting the crystal, she connected it to solely the one used by Louvre.

It didn't take long for his face to appear.

"Why are you calling me again?" the servant Apostle asked with annoyance clear in his tone.

The man may have not been powerful enough to rank as an ancestor, but he had _survived _contact with Nrvnqsr for centuries so he had at least some value.

"Oh, I just felt that Nero should be given a little extra information on Sumire's apprentice than everyone else, what with how the child is stealing his gimmick," she said casually.

"Go on," it said plenty of how used to this sort of scenario Louvre was that he wasn't even remotely surprised she had held back something.

She doubted the others had believed she had given them everything she knew… so they'd probably follow her movements for a while.

"Sumire mentioned she was returning to Fuyuki… so I believe her apprentice may live there," she informed him, "now, I hope you only tell your master this information… watching the others frustrate themselves looking for him should be fun."

"And what do you gain from informing me?" he asked her and she simply offered a smirk.

"The fun of seeing what will happen when this kid meets Chaos," she declared, "it will be a shame I won't be able to watch it myself, but the outcome alone should be interesting to hear about."

The younger Apostle looked at her through the crystal with eyes searching for any signs of misdirection.

"I shall inform my master of this information," he finally relented.

"Good boy," she said, earning a twitch off the other Vampire.

"I am not a dog," he declared firmly.

"Oh? My apologies, I never intended on insinuating that," she responded, "I simply find it difficult to think of you as anything other than a child."

"Are you forgetting that my master has declared me his heir should he fall?" he responded.

"Do you honestly believe you deserve to be amongst our ranks?"

His flinch was outright visible.

It seemed that particular insecurity still weighed heavily upon him.

After all, the vampire had gone on a mystic code collection spree to try and compensate for his lack of power after his master had declared him his heir.

Honestly, with the sheer arsenal Louvre had collected, there was a chance he might actually be capable of killing some of them.

"Now, be a good boy and deliver my message to Nero will you?" she asked him with as sickly sweet a tone as she could muster.

The way he grit his teeth in response made it clear the condescension had come through perfectly.

That the connection was cut off on his end made it even more clear that she had managed to get under his skin.

Now, it was simply time to wait and see what happened.

While she was doing that, she could spend a little more time practising her painting.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Waver Velvet couldn't stop himself from sinking into his chair as he finally got the chance to sit down.

This… was going to be _**hard**_.

It had been bad enough to have Gray around when she looked so much like the Fourth Wars Saber… but to actually have the _living _version of that same servant acting within the Clocktower would be exhausting.

But at least he had managed to get Reines to listen to reason and accept the deal with her.

It may not have been much, but despite how he was certain Saber; no, it was wrong to call her that now.

Now she was here simply as Arturia Pendragon, the _human _who once ruled Britain.

It would definitely take a while to get used to thinking of her as that.

But it didn't change the fact he was certain she wouldn't align herself with just anyone, for she still had her honour as a knight.

However, it gave him at least some piece of mind to know that they weren't enemies again.

He didn't know if she'd be as strong as she had been as a servant but he wasn't eager to find out when he was on the wrong end of her sword.

A knock sounded on his door before it opened to reveal the very blonde he had hoped to see less of.

"You look tired Waver Velvet," the former Saber declared.

"Yeah, well, it's not been an easy day for me," he decided to admit bluntly.

"I can imagine," she said even as she moved further into the room and took a seat of her own, "having to meet with a former enemy with no warning is hard for most people."

"Is it hard for you?" he asked.

She shook her head in the negative.

"I was a knight, I met many on the battlefield and expected to have to deal with them again," she told him before glancing away from him, "my issue was maintaining the loyalty of my people."

He snorted at that.

Even to this day he remembered the 'banquet of kings' as it had been dubbed.

And his king had shown exactly why he had been so successful in his conquest.

After all, his King had inspired him to live in a way he had never dreamed of back before he had met him simply due to his sheer character.

A character that Arturia had never shown him.

"Is something funny?" she asked him with her eyes narrowed and he simply shrugged.

"I can easily see why," he decided to be perfectly blunt with her.

"Is this because of _your _King?" she asked and he nodded.

After a few seconds she simply sighed.

It was obvious looking at her response that she was still shaken by Rider's kingship.

But he couldn't blame her, their rule as king was so vastly different that trying to compare them was like trying to compare a hearty meal to an engine.

"That girl, Reines," she started up once again and he found himself grimacing.

"She was related to Kayneth," he confirmed for her.

The way her fist clenched made it obvious she wasn't happy about that.

"She's nothing like him though," he tried to clarify for the former king, hoping she would leave Reines alone.

"That is not it," she responded and he found himself blinking, "before he died, Kayneth signed a geass with Emiya… he would have his servant kill himself in exchange for my _master_," the way she spat out that word made it clear she hated calling him that, "sparing him and his fiance."

He had to frown at that.

"Diarmuid died cursing me because of my master going behind my back and blackmailing Kayneth into killing him," her teeth were being grit together so hard that he wasn't sure they wouldn't break, "and after that was done… my master had his assistant shoot both of them."

It was clear just how disgusted with Kiritsugu's actions she had been.

And he found himself wondering if she would ever meet the man again… because he was certain Kiritsugu deserved whatever punishment she would dish out to him.

But despite that, simply hearing about how Kayneth had died made him feel even worse about his role in the man's death.

He had always assumed the man had died the same way he had lived, looking down on his opponents.

But to find out he had given up his chance of victory to try and save his fiance, was something far more compassionate than he had expected from the person he had always viewed as arrogant and cruel.

"That's… a bit hard to take in," he admitted to his old foe.

She simply offered him a wry smile before speaking.

"I can understand that, he certainly didn't seem to like you."

He had to laugh at that.

That was an understatement if there ever was one.

Shaking his had clear of those old memories, he decided it was time to ask the most important question.

"So… why did you come to see me?"

"To thank you for your help today," her response caught him off guard.

After a couple of seconds however, he brought himself back to reality.

"My King would want me to help you," he told her simply.

And he was sure Rider would have wanted him to help her.

"Now, if that's everything… I would like some time alone right now," he informed her, earning a nod of acceptance from the ancient king.

"Then I shall leave you in peace," she declared as she rose from her chair, "I shall see you later."

He almost grimaced at that.

The thought that he was going to have to get used to seeing her around was hard.

To make matters even worse, he was probably going to have to be the person to reveal her presence to the Clocktower as a whole.

Meaning things were only going to get worse from now on.

"Goodbye Sa- Sir Pendragon," he had to correct himself and it was obvious she knew that's what his slip up was going to be.

But at least she left the room without saying anything else.

God he needed a drink.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Louvre couldn't stop himself from swallowing nervously as he approached his master's room.

Nrvnqsr Chaos had been out hunting not long prior so his appetite would probably have diminished somewhat.

However it was always a risk he took whenever he approached the Ancestor.

Without the power to survive being mauled by six hundred and sixty-six beasts, including species that had long since retreated to the Reverse Side of the World, simply going near the Tenth Ancestor was a potentially lethal endeavour.

But at least he had a better chance of not being devoured if his master had already eaten.

Opening the door he was greeted by the distinct sound of crunching even as a quiet whimper assaulted his ears.

Looking at the source of the whimper he found himself looking at a young girl, probably no older than fifteen, currently in the maws of several of his masters beasts, her eyes streaked with tears and her expression warped into a caricature of agony.

And then one of the wolf-like monsters from his master's Reality Marble clenched with it's jaw, causing the girl's expression to flinch as bone crunched and an arm was torn from it's socket.

It wouldn't be long before the beasts finally tore into her and ended her life.

But it was a good sign.

If they were torturing someone that meant that his master was in a stable enough frame of mind to withhold himself from consuming every living thing in his vicinity.

"Master Chaos," he spoke up, drawing the attention of two white orbs that existed near the back of the room, "I have news that you should be made aware of."

"What is it Louvre?" that was yet another good sign.

"The Twenty-First Ancestor, Sumire The Water Bottle has taken an apprentice," he stated as clearly as he could, "and according to The Fifteenth Ancestor, Rita Rozay-en, her apprentice appears to have achieved your own feat with his own Reality Marble,"

Another crunch and the whimpering stopped.

"Do you know anything else?" his master asked and he nodded even as he saw the beasts starting to circle him.

"Apparently, he is under two decades old, possesses the name 'Shirou' and lives in Fuyuki City in Japan," he listed off as quickly as he could.

The beasts started to back off from him.

"Good."

He felt a sense of relief flood him.

He was certain his master could smell his fear but only a fool wouldn't be scared of him.

"Louvre, prepare a flight to Fuyuki… I have business there."

He nodded before making his way out of the room, never once turning his back on his master.

Now, what flight to Japan wouldn't be missed?

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that is all for this month.

Shadow out.


	8. Chapter 8

Hello Everyone.

Here we are with the next chapter.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

Shirou woke up once again.

He felt so much more refreshed than he had before but he knew that was simply because of the snacks he had taken the previous night.

Because of them he was now full of magical energy and he could now focus on improving his abilities instead of simply trying to maintain his body.

The feeling was just so… liberating.

Getting up from his futon he immediately started to push a little prana into his skin once again.

He needed to keep it alive until he could figure out a way to replace it with something that didn't come off as uncanny to the human eye.

His eyes were currently weird enough as it was; anyone looking at them closely would definitely find something wrong with them.

Thankfully, only Fuji-nee had ever bothered to look close enough.

However when he was dealing with his skin it became a different matter entirely.

He could avoid eye contact with people under most situations but they could easily see his skin no matter what he was doing.

So he needed to come up with a better method of replacing his skin if he ever wanted to pass as a human without keeping it alive.

Making his way out of his room he immediately noted that it was still dark outside; not surprising given the time of year.

The next thing he noticed was the dark haired figure with a bottle a sake sitting on the decking.

"Good morning Sumi-" he started before seeing her glare at him, "I mean… Onee-chan."

It still felt strange to call her that.

But she was going to be acting as his mentor so he should show her the appropriate level of respect by fulfilling her commands.

At least, unless they were lethal for others.

"Morning Shirou-chaan~!" the woman called out, her tone definitely more inebriated than when he had decided to go to sleep… or whatever it was he did now.

"I see you've been raiding the liquor cabinet again," he stated without hesitation, earning a firm nod from the woman.

"Of course, Rita doesn't have much in the way of alcohol so I couldn't raid her pantry for it," the woman declared and Shirou found himself tilting his head in confusion.

"Rita?" he had to ask.

"Oh… Rita's a friend of mine," the drunken woman said easily, "she's another Ancestor."

Another Ancestor?

"Wait… there's _another _Ancestor in this city?" That was a worrying prospect; after all, they were apparently all vampiric so the danger to the public was likely going to be high.

Especially if his spar with Sumire was anything to go off concerning the power of the Ancestors.

"Oh no, she lives in Europe," she responded and he frowned in response.

"How did you even get there?"

"Teleported."

Shirou blinked once.

And twice.

"You teleported?" he clarified.

"Yep."

"… you never told me you could teleport," he pointed out, causing the woman to blink in response before shrugging.

"Oh, well, it's not the sort of thing I can use in battle," she declared, "it's just to quickly travel about the place."

"Can you teach me how to do it?" he asked her. The ability to teleport would be so useful in getting to places where people were in need of saving.

"Oh no… teleportation is the sort of stuff that was lost with the Age of Gods," the drunkard declared and he blinked.

"The Age of Gods?" he hadn't heard about that before.

"Oh, just a few thousand years ago, back when the gods still walked the Earth, True Ether still existed and divine and phantasmal beasts were common," her explanation made him stare.

That… was a _lot _to take in.

The idea that the world was once overrun with monsters wasn't something he had considered before.

But then again, it made a certain amount of sense.

Why else would these creatures be immortalised in myth if there was nothing to base them on.

"So, what happened to end it?" he asked her.

"King Solomon died, after that the Age of Gods entered a decline," she told him with a shrug, "though, there are a few of us from that time still around, like me, Crown, Nero and the heads of the mages association."

Shirou froze.

The heads of the mages association were from that time?

He certainly did not want to get into a fight with them if that was the case.

"Does that mean your abilities were common during that era?" he asked.

Sumire had effortlessly overwhelmed him after all, so was that the standard for those of that time?

"Not really, my abilities are more tied to the Fae than a time period," she explained and he blinked.

"What is your connection to the Fae anyway?" it wasn't something she had ever explained to him after all.

"Oh, just a bit of Fae in the blood before I was turned by a True Ancestor," she replied off-handedly.

"And what is a _True _Ancestor?" she had told him about the group called the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors but she hadn't mentioned True Ancestors before.

"Oh, they're the children of Crimson Moon Brunestud… the _first _Vampire."

So the children of the first Vampire were called True Ancestors… that made at least some sense.

"What can you tell me about the first vampire?"

"… he was the anthropomorphic personification of the consciousness of the Moon," her words penetrated his skull of steel like it was paper, "he made a few Vampires, had a few children and was eventually defeated by Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg… he's dead but could easily return under the right circumstances."

"And just what would happen if he returned?"

"Oh, the human race would end."

Sumire's statement was said with such finality that it was jarring.

"J-just like that?" he had to confirm.

"Zelretch had to gather raw magical power from countless parallel worlds to overwhelm him, enough that he was permanently crippled as a result," his new mentor told him with a sense of sadness in her tone, "the man still lives on since Crimson Moon turned him into a Vampire, but he's a shadow of his former self."

"If he's gotten weak then why is he still alive now?" he honestly couldn't understand why the man would have survived so long.

"He's a shadow of his former self… but he's still more than powerful enough to completely destroy me in a fight."

Wait… this man who was _crippled _from his fight was _still _stronger than his current mentor?

That was outright terrifying.

Especially with the information that this 'Crimson Moon' had managed to do that damage to him when he was in his prime.

It did however raise one rather important question for him.

"How is humanity still even alive?" from what he was hearing it sounded like there was no way for humans to have lasted this long.

"Oh, that's because the mages association has it's own methods of dealing with our kind," she said, "then the only two things that are truly powerful enough to wipe out humanity on their own are either dormant or playing the role of a lapdog right now."

Shirou looked at her with a single eyebrow raised.

"A 'lapdog'?" he asked with scepticism clear in his tone.

"Cath Palug… though the Mages Association and Church call him 'Primate Murder'," she informed him, "currently acting as the guard dog of Altrouge Brunestud, the ninth Dead Apostle Ancestor."

Shirou simply analysed her for any indication she was lying and found none.

Of course, it did raise a question.

"Just how strong is this 'Cath Palug'?"

"Depends," he blinked, "he's a Beast… one of the humanity ending creatures of the end empowered by the world itself… if he faces anything stronger than himself, then the world will simply empower him to be stronger than it."

Shirou had to wonder… was this sort of stuff _normal _knowledge among magi or was he learning of the worst sort of stuff simply because he got the right teacher?

However there was one thing he had to ask.

"And how does this 'Altrouge Brunestud' control it?"

"She's half True Ancestor and half Dead Apostle, it's probably the True Ancestor part of her that makes it listen to her," the answer made him nod in acknowledgement.

"So a vampire is the only thing standing between this creature and humanity?"

"Pretty much," she confirmed and Shirou found himself taking a seat next to her.

"… now I wish I could get drunk," he muttered.

A chuckle of amusement came from the kimono wearing woman as she picked up the bottle and gestured to him.

"Have you ever tried?"

"No but my body is made of swords, I don't have any organs to process alcohol," he pointed out to her.

"Oh well, more for me then," and with that she put the bottle to her lips and took a deep swig of the bottle.

"Do you want any breakfast?" he decided to change the subject and earned a raised eyebrow from the vampiric woman, "I'm going to have to cook something for Taiga anyway, so I can easily cook something for you as well."

She took a few seconds before a grin formed on her lips.

"I think I'll take you up on that offer."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from worrying as she made her way to Shirou's home.

With everything that had happened recently she was struggling more and more with keeping up with everything.

But the worst part was the realisation that she was losing her little brother.

For all her lack of ability in care-taking skills she wanted nothing more than to keep the boy safe… but magic was beyond her ability to deal with.

Hell, the mere fact that he was now literally a walking mass of blades covered in skin didn't help matters.

Especially not when the very vampire responsible for his transformation was shocked at it.

She shook her head.

There was no use dwelling on such matters.

Instead she needed to make sure she was there for Shirou to try and make sure that he wouldn't lose himself due to Sumire's influence.

She pushed the thought that she would die long before him out of her head.

She needed to be positive and encourage Shirou to be a good boy and not listen to the corrupting influence of the drunkard.

Finally reaching Shirou's front door, she tested the handle and found it unlocked, prompting her to slide it open and walk inside.

Removing her shoes, she quickly noticed the scent of food wafting through the house.

Meaning Shirou had once again decided to cook for her.

Walking over to the main living area, she stalled upon seeing the dark haired Vampire sitting at the table currently covered in the food that was normally laid out just for her.

"Good morning Fuji-nee," Shirou's voice called from the kitchen, "I've cooked a bit more than normal so Su- I mean, Onee-chan can eat too."

She felt her eye twitch as the woman gave a satisfied smirk at Shirou correcting himself without even being glared at this time.

It was obvious the woman was thinking of him like a pet dog that she had to train.

It was honestly disgusting.

"Are you happy Shirou's getting trained to call you that?" she asked, her tone low.

"Of course! I've never had a little brother after all," the woman responded without any hint she had picked up on her implied threat.

"Fuji-nee, don't," Shirou spoke up and she looked at him.

"Oh? What's wrong Shirou-chan?" the alcoholic asked and Shirou simply shrugged.

"I think Fuji-nee thinks you're mocking me or something like that," she had to blink at Shirou's words.

Was she really so easy for him to read?

Then she heard a whine from the black haired woman.

"… but why would she think that?" the oldest in the room asked with a clear sense of confusion in her tone.

"I guess you just come off as a little condescending," Shirou said and the woman started thinking.

"You're treating Shirou like a puppy to train," she decided to state outright.

Yes, it was a stupid thing to do to provoke a vampire but between her self-preservation and Shirou's welfare, the latter came first every time.

"… do I?" there was no anger or sneering.

The vampire instead looked surprised at the statement.

"Fuji-nee…" Shirou moaned piteously.

"Well… if I do that again, just let me know okay?" the woman responded and she blinked, "I haven't really spoken with people outside of Rita for… I'd guess one and a half, two millennia now."

Taiga simply froze.

_Millennia_!

Even centuries would have been bad but that was a whole different ball park of age.

"I think you broke Fuji-nee," Shirou's voice cut in and she shook her head clear.

"Millennia!"

She couldn't contain herself.

There was no way she could accept that this woman was over a thousand years old!

"Yeah, I'm not even the oldest being still alive these days," the woman responded before taking a swig of a familiar bottle of Sake.

"It's too early to be drinking!" she had to draw a line somewhere.

"It's never too early to be drinking," the vampire retorted without delay, "and I'll be going to bed after this so it's late, not early."

The woman declared with a satisfied smile on her face.

She was about to complain about the woman going to bed in the morning but stopped herself.

This wasn't a student or even a normal adult.

This was a vampire.

And Vampire's were allergic to sunlight so it only made sense for the woman to go to bed at a time like this.

"… Fine," she relented as the woman picked up some freshly cooked fish and took a bite.

"Shirou-chan~" the woman spoke in a sing-song voice, obviously ignoring her in the process, "you're going to make Onee-chan more fish for when she wakes up okay~?"

Taiga couldn't stop herself from gritting her teeth at that.

To think that the freeloader was trying to get Shirou to cook her something specific.

Then again… this was Shirou.

"Any preference?" his question didn't surprise her.

For all her thoughts about how Shirou shouldn't treat the vampire, Shirou was still a surprisingly pleasant young man who liked to help others.

It just so happened that he was now some sort of self-made vampire made of metal.

"Fresh Salmon!" the drunkard declared.

"… I'll see what I can do."

At least he wasn't guaranteeing anything.

Now she just had to get a seat at the table and finish off the food before Sumire could eat much more.

So she moved to her seat and piled as much onto her plate as she could manage.

"Oh? Enjoy Shirou-chan's cooking do you?" the ancient woman asked and she narrowed her eyes and nodded, "I'm not going to blame you for that one, he's not a bad cook given his lack of standard senses."

Taiga froze.

That… wasn't something she had considered before.

How exactly _did _Shirou cook the food so well without a sense of taste?

"Shirou… how do you know when it's done properly?" she was definitely curious now.

"Oh, I just analysed food from some of the restaurants when I was younger and figured out what was right and what was wrong," he said, "so it's just a matter of keeping the food in my analysis and trying to mimic the results of the professional stuff."

That… that was not what she had expected.

To know that he was simply imitating the food he had seen served at restaurants was rather disappointing.

But at the same time, it explained quite a lot about his skill at cooking.

Not that she had any right to comment on the process of cooking when all she could do with food was eat it.

"Oh, that makes sense," Sumire's response was far more accepting and less surprised by the answer.

But then again, she was just a normal human and Sumire was an ancient vampire with god knows how much experience in her life.

She just hoped she would be able to adapt the insanity of living with magic and vampires before she went insane.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Walking towards the school was one thing that Shirou had thought would go by normally.

After all, he was just walking towards school.

Sumire had gone to bed and he was no longer having to worry about using too much prana when maintaining his skin.

So everything should have gone normally.

For the first time he was walking towards the school with his structural analysis spread out at the largest range he could manage.

He finally got a proper look at everything in the district and the people who lived within half a mile of his route to school.

And that is when he detected it.

Someone possessed a _large _number of magic circuits in their body… more specifically _active _magic circuits.

The fact that they immediately froze and started looking around the area made it obvious they had felt his analysis wash over them.

And so, despite being more than capable of analysing everything for the first time since he had lost his ability to turn his body back into flesh, he shut off the analysis.

At least now he knew he had to be more careful.

And it explained a few things he had been wondering about just the previous day.

Tohsaka Rin was a Magus.

It explained why she wasn't concerned with extra-curricular activities; after all, if she was planning on moving to London then that meant that she was likely intending on joining the Mages Association, a place he doubted would care about her Japanese school records.

Now he would have to be extra careful around her.

The chances were that the only reason she hadn't picked up on anything strange about him the previous day was because she wasn't looking for anything.

But now, now she would be actively seeking the source of the Magical Phenomena that had washed over her earlier.

So he would have to return to trying to minimise the magical energy escaping his body and maintaining his skin just to stand a chance of escaping her notice.

Of course, even that wasn't a guarantee that he would succeed.

Hell, she may have already noticed his inhumanity already and just kept quiet about it.

If only he could get inside her head and learn what she knew.

Of course, this would also mean speaking with both Sumire and Fuji-nee about the matter as well.

Both should know that he was going to school with a magus.

But for now, he was simply going to continue his journey to school and hope nothing happened.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Tohsaka Rin couldn't stop herself from feeling a sense of paranoia nipping at her psyche.

She was certain some type of magical effect had passed over her but exactly what it was or where it was centred around was beyond her ability to ascertain.

If she had gotten a longer time to examine it then she might have been better equipped to find the source but the sheer speed with which it passed over her and then vanished without a trace meant she hadn't had such a chance.

Then there was the issue of school.

She couldn't just drop it when she was already on her way there; especially not without being able to phone the school and give her reasons.

Kirei probably wouldn't be of any help in that endeavour either.

Shaking her head clear of those thoughts, she once again focused on her magical detection… there was no telling where such a phenomena would appear again and this time, she would be ready for it.

Finally reaching the school she passed through the gates and prayed to god that whatever it was wouldn't strike at the school.

There were too many people to defend or hypnotise into forgetting things, let alone if she had to do both together.

She would have to inform Kirei later out of principle but she was certain the man would simply leave it to her.

Perhaps Shinji would be able to aid her…

Pfft.

As if.

The boy had basically no magical power, less talent in the art and an even worse personality.

Hell, he might even take it as her taking an interest in him.

So keeping him out of the matter would be the most sensible thing she could do.

Sakura could have possibly aided her but they had been forbidden from talking due to the agreement.

Meaning she was on her own.

She had at least taken note of where she had felt the sensation, it was plausible that it was a bounded field of some type but she had her doubts.

The fact that it had vanished spoke of someone manually operating it.

Which meant there was at the very least a magus in the city operating without her permission.

Of course, there was the possibility of it being something worse but that wasn't likely.

Walking through the school she laid eyes on a familiar mop of spiky red-hair and released a grimace.

There was no way she could approach him with this matter looming over her head.

It would be bad enough dealing with people who she had spoken to regularly before starting High School, let alone bringing a relative stranger into harms way.

She would just have to deal with it.

For now, she would just have to attend class and hope nothing bad happened while she was preoccupied.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou felt a sense of relief wash over him as the face of Rin disappeared into the crowd.

It would have been hard to keep matters under wraps if she had approached him.

But it seemed she may have decided to actively avoid him.

That could mean one of two things.

Firstly, that she was trying to keep him out of harms way by keeping him at arms length, or that she already knew and was avoiding him out of caution.

The first option was preferable.

It meant that she was at least a somewhat kind person who thought about the welfare of others.

The latter would also mean that he could be at risk of having an attack squad barging into his home at any moment.

And having to fight off people from his home was not a pleasant idea.

Upon entering his classroom, he saw everyone once again forming into their cliques.

Cliques that he hadn't yet attempted to integrate himself into.

Not that he really had any intention of doing so.

There was a fundamental difference between their existences after all.

They were humans and he was a sword.

Well… a giant mass of miniature swords covered in a suit of skin but the point remained the same.

"Hello Emiya-san," a voice that he recognised from his childhood called out and he found himself facing Ryuudou Issei.

"Hello Ryuudou-san," he replied.

They hadn't really interacted much during the past few years but he was close enough with the boy to say they were on relatively friendly terms.

"I noticed that you left early yesterday," the boy said with a tone that conveyed a sense of concern, "was something wrong?"

"No, I just needed some sleep."

"I see, I guess even you get nervous when starting a new school," the boy concluded and he offered a small smile.

"Yeah," it was a lie but the truth wasn't something he was planning on sharing with him.

"I hope you caught up on your rest yesterday, if you want to make friends here then you'll have your work cut out for you," the bespectacled boy informed him.

Shirou simply shrugged.

"I'm not that concerned about that," he admitted, earning a frown off the other boy, "I already have a career path in mind and it doesn't value social aptitude."

The boy simply blinked.

"Are… you planning on going abroad?" Shirou simply nodded.

He fully intended on going anywhere where people needed help.

After all, as much as he may have been hurt by the knowledge of everything his adopted father may have done, he still wanted to help others.

It was just that now he had his own reasons for wanting to do so instead of simply wanting to fulfil the dreams of a dead man.

"I see, do you have any country in particular you wish to go?"

"Oh? What's this? Emiya wants to leave the country?" a voice spoke up from nearby with a snide tone.

Looking at the owner he saw Matou Shinji, sitting on his desk, a smirk on his lips as he looked at them.

Shirou couldn't say he liked the boy.

He had started off nice enough, a bit arrogant but nothing egregious.

But over the past year or so he had simply grown more and more insufferable.

"I was thinking of the Middle East," Shirou decided to ignore the boy.

"The Middle East?" Issei seemed surprised by that, "but… why?"

"I want to volunteer for humanitarian aid," it wasn't exactly true but it was somewhat close, "and there is a lot of conflict there."

"That's… not really a career plan," Issei responded and he shrugged.

"Oi! What do you think you're doing?!" the boy with messy blue hair asked with a sneer replacing his smirk.

"I don't really care about a career," he admitted, "I can live a simple and cheap life myself."

That was a bit of an understatement.

Technically all he needed was to find something with blood and that was enough to keep him alive.

The fact that he was more than willing to sit in peace and do nothing also meant that he didn't need to spend any money on entertainment either.

He could literally live without spending any money at all.

"Uh… Emiya-san, do you think it's right to ignore Matou-san?" Issei seemed to be growing somewhat worried about the other boy.

Shirou just shrugged in response.

"He's not worth the effort to deal with."

"Not worth the effort?" Shinji started seething at that response.

"Emiya-san…" clearly Issei wasn't comfortable with the way the other boy was currently glaring in their direction.

Before he could even explain why he felt Shinji wasn't worth the effort, the door to the classroom burst open and Fuji-nee practically fell in just as the bell rang.

The entire class was silent as everyone who wasn't Shirou stared in disbelief.

Obviously they expected at least some level of professionalism from their teacher.

Shirou at least had the benefit of knowing just what she was like from having looked after her for so long.

He blinked at that.

Wasn't she supposed to be the one who looked after him?

Oh well, it wasn't important anyway.

"… uh…" the awkward silence continued.

"This isn't over Emiya," Shinji declared quietly before returning to his seat.

"Wake up Fujimura-sensei," Shirou decided to call out.

No response.

"Uh… do you think she's okay?" Issei asked as he walked towards the woman who was currently laying on the ground nearly perfectly still.

Shirou stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Wake up Tiger," he said calmly.

The response was almost instant.

Fuji-nee burst up from her prone position, her eyes burning with a fiery passion that made it clear any normal human who got in her way would be turned into mincemeat.

But of course, he wasn't normal.

"RRAAAGGGHHH!"

She gave a roar as she stood before the class.

After a couple of seconds of looking at the room she started to calm down even as her eyes lay on him.

She was probably going to complain about his action later.

But for now, she simply took in the dumbstruck expressions upon his classmates faces before flushing red and moving behind the podium.

At least they were finally going to get the lesson started.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The bell that indicated the end of the school day rang and Shirou almost immediately rose from his seat and made his way towards the door.

"Oi! Emiya, where do you think you're going?" the voice of Matou Shinji called out from behind him and he found himself facing a dilemma.

He could either stop and listen to the other boy who had long since proven himself to be an intolerable asshole or he could leave.

Admittedly the only reason it was a dilemma was because he thought it would be rude to ignore the boy.

But despite his better judgement, he stopped and faced the messy haired boy.

"You're quite the arrogant asshole aren't you? Thinking you can dismiss me just like that," the boy said with a sense of disgust clear in his tone.

"Like I said, you're not worth the effort," he informed the boy again, prompting a sneer from his lips.

"Is that so… then I guess I will just have to make you regret your attitude," the other boy declared.

Shirou just blinked.

"And exactly _how _do you intend on doing that?" he asked the other boy who recoiled slightly at the question.

"It's simple, I have influence and influence can make things bad for you," the boy stated.

Shirou simply stared at him.

"You have no idea do you?" he asked the boy after a couple of seconds.

The way the messy haired boy grit his teeth in response made it obvious he was right.

"Even so," Shirou continued, "dealing with you is too much effort so I'd rather avoid having to talk with you if possible."

The other boy's eye twitched.

"Goodbye Matou-san," he offered a farewell as he made his way out of the door.

And nearly bumped into Tohsaka.

"Oh, Emiya-kun… sorry, I didn't notice you there," the girl said and he simply held up his hands.

"It's fine, I was a little distracted myself," he admitted to her, causing her to look past him and immediately don an expression that bordered on revulsion.

"Oh… hello Matou-san," she said with some clear distaste in her tone.

Obviously they had at least some history as well.

"Tohsaka…" Shirou looked at the other boy.

Shinji's tone was not one he had heard from the boy before.

He couldn't tell if he hated her or had a crush on her.

It didn't take long to realise what probably happened.

"Well, I'm sorry Emiya-kun but I have something I need to do," she quickly dismissed the other boy and returned her attention to him, "so I won't be able to speak with you today."

"That's fine Tohsaka-san," he responded.

"H-hey! Why are you talking to _him _and ignoring me?!" the boy behind him asked.

"Oh, Emiya-kun is just a much more pleasant individual than you," he had to blink at her response.

It wasn't something he was surprised by but the sheer lack of concern she had for hurting the other boy's feelings definitely added to his hypothesis that Shinji had asked her out and been rejected.

He could hear some people from within the classroom starting to snigger, meaning that some people had obviously decided to eavesdrop on the confrontation.

"I've got my own matters to attend to as well, so I'll be leaving now," he informed her as he decided to leave the darker haired boy in the classroom.

He had a feeling the boy would likely face some form of ridicule for that but he had brought it on himself.

So Shirou felt no need to help him out.

Walking through the hallway so close to Tohsaka was concerning but avoiding her would only make him more suspicious.

"Emiya-kun… you're going to have to walk by yourself today," she said.

The fact that he could pick up on some concern in her tone made it click for him what her current situation was.

She didn't know what he was and was trying to keep him uninvolved as she investigated his Structural Analysis from earlier.

But she shouldn't find anything.

Which made him consider doing one small thing.

Tell her the truth.

If she knew that he was responsible for the wave of Magic that hit her earlier than she could rest easy.

But… would she be willing to tolerate his existence in her city?

There was simply too much that could go wrong if he told her.

"Okay… I guess it must be important," he replied, trying to ignore his urge to let her know.

"Yes, it's very important," she admitted with a smile that let him know she actually was sorry to be splitting ways with him.

It might have been dangerous to tell her but that didn't mean he couldn't tell Sumire and ask for her feedback on the issue.

Perhaps she would approve of his desire to let the girl know the truth.

But until then, he would simply go his own way.

"Then I'll see you tomorrow Tohsaka," he didn't know how their next meeting would go but that was for the following day.

"Goodbye Emiya-kun," and with that, the dark haired girl moved off down a different street.

Now he just had to go home and let both Sumire and Fuji-nee know about this.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga couldn't stop herself from releasing a sigh as she finally arrived at Shirou's house.

The staff meeting had gone on a little longer than expected but she had managed to gain supervisor status for the Archery Club so it had been worth it.

"Shirou! I'm home!" she called out, almost chuckling at the fact that she called his house home.

She was still a little annoyed at him calling her _that name_ at the start of class but he didn't exactly do that regularly so she could forgive him.

But those thoughts were quickly pushed aside by the smell of food.

She may have had to buy it herself since Shirou wasn't going to waste his own money feeding her when he didn't eat, but he was more than willing to cook it for her.

Stalking through the hallway she finally came upon the living room and noticed that Sumire was once again sitting at the table.

She couldn't wait for the sun to start setting later and force her to stay holed up longer but for now she would just have to tolerate the woman's presence.

"Good, you're finally here," Shirou said as he laid out the table, "I have something important to tell you both."

Taiga couldn't stop herself from swallowing nervously at that.

Shirou saying he had something important to tell her was _never _a good sign.

"Oh? What is it Shirou-chan?" obviously the vampire didn't have the same understanding of how Shirou spoke to know it wasn't good.

"I found out a girl I go to school with is a Magus."

Taiga froze.

There was _another _magus at the school she worked?

Sumire simply blinked.

"Who?"

"Tohsaka Rin," he said.

Taiga found herself trying to remember who that name belonged to.

"Oh."

There was no amusement in Sumire's tone as she gave a short but clear response.

"Do you know anything about her?" Shirou asked.

"The Tohsaka have been the Clock Tower's representatives in this area for a good couple of hundred years," the vampiric woman claimed, "meaning she's probably the daughter of the overseer."

Taiga finally managed to put a face to the name and frowned.

"Tohsaka Rin is an orphan," she informed them, causing both to look at her, "her files said that her legal guardian was the priest from the Fuyuki Parish Church."

That made the Vampire grimace even more.

"That's not good to hear," Sumire declared, "that means she has a direct line to the Executors."

Taiga froze.

"What do you mean Executors?" Shirou asked.

"The subsection of the Church that exists to kill Apostles."

Taiga's throat ran dry at that.

Tohsaka Rin was in contact with a person who could call in some kind of magical hit-squad to kill Shirou?

"Then I take it I can't let her know what I am," Shirou asked.

"Why would you consider that?" Sumire asked.

"Because she was actually pretty nice to me," he declared.

"Even if she appears nice to you, it doesn't mean she _is_… it could easily be a front she put up to interact with you," the drunkard said and Shirou nodded.

"I know, it's just that I caught her in my Structural Analysis earlier and she noticed," Shirou's words caused the dark haired drunkard to freeze.

"Did she know it was you?"

"She was about half a mile away at the time, so she probably doesn't," Shirou's declaration made the woman relax.

"That's good then."

Despite everything, Taiga simply couldn't stop herself from focusing on the fact that she was now teaching a wizard English.

It would be so hard to treat her normally now.

But she would have to do it if she wanted to avoid putting Shirou in hot water.

"Is there anything else you need to tell us?" Sumire asked and Shirou shook his head.

"No, I just needed to tell you about Tohsaka," he admitted, "you can eat now."

Taiga moved to sit at the table.

But in a situation like this, she couldn't bring up the enthusiasm to eat as voraciously as she normally did.

Everything was just getting even worse.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Kuromaru couldn't stop himself from swallowing nervously as he motioned for the rest of his team to ready themselves.

A plane had landed minutes ago but before disembarkment could occur the pilot had contacted control.

They didn't know what the situation within the jet was but he knew it was bad.

Opening the door he pulled back and pointed his firearm into the entrance.

Almost immediately he felt a sense of unease assault him.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Slowly walking into the plane, he glanced down both ends of the plane and saw nothing.

This was _wrong_.

There should have been at least some people in the jet, no one had disembarked since it had landed.

And the plane had been full to capacity.

So where had everyone vanished to?

Moving towards the cockpit, he checked to make sure his team was behind him.

Silence continued to reign as he finally reached the door to the cockpit and opened it.

Empty.

He had to shake his head as he felt goosebumps forming.

There was no way this could have happened.

People didn't just vanish into thin air.

Turning around he looked back down the plane before blinking.

Where was the exit?

"Hey, where's the exit gone?" he asked his team who all turned around and started to panic at the impossibility of the scenario.

Then he heard a low growling on the edge of his hearing.

Turning to face the sound, he felt a whimper trying to escape his throat.

And then the darkness swallowed him.

XXX Chapter End XXX

And... that's all for now.

Shadow Out.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello everybody.

Anyway... I'm going to plug someone else's fic here.

I haven't actually read it (since I find that I prefer to write fanfics instead of read them these days) but there is now at least one fic that was inspired by this.

**"That's Hell You're Walking Into" by Jackie Avocado ( s/13533461/1/)**

So if you're interested in a different take on this basic concept, check it out.

Anyway... that's all for now...

Let's get on with the fic.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

"It is good to see you're here Kotomine-san."

Kotomine could do little more than look at the police chief as the man fidgeted nervously.

"It is my duty as an Executor of the Church to attend to matters such as this," he responded calmly.

"Y-yes…" the man responded, obviously uncertain of the situation, "the plane has been cordoned off pending further investigation."

"And exactly what happened here?" he asked.

Despite the fact that the conversation on the phone had been between two individuals who were both aware of the supernatural it was too easy to record conversations over the phone to say anything important over it.

"Well… one of the planes landed several hours ago but no one disembarked," the other man started to explain, "after the crew failed to respond, they sent a security team to investigate… the team went silent and nothing has left the plane since."

He nodded.

"Very well, then I shall conduct my own investigation of the interior," he informed the man who nodded after swallowing nervously.

"What if…" the man started to say.

"Should I fail to return, then contact the Vatican directly and inform them of what happened here," he stated bluntly.

After all, if whatever was in that plane was powerful enough to kill him then it was likely something that would require The Burial Agency itself to put down.

"I… I see," he almost laughed.

The police chief may have known about the existence of the Supernatural but the man was still just a normal human with no magical potential, kept in line by the fear of what was lurking in the darkness.

Because as much as the police may have liked to think otherwise, they were powerless before the monsters that existed in the world.

Eventually coming to a hanger, he was led inside where the saw a standard Boeing 747 with nothing out of the ordinary in it's appearance.

But appearances could be deceiving.

He stopped and looked at the jet, studying it with his all six of his senses for several seconds.

"Is something wrong?" the police chief asked, his nervousness clear in his tone.

"Whatever was on that plane is gone now," he declared, causing the man to jerk in surprise.

"That's impossible! We've had it watched at all times!" the man declared.

"Hypnotism is a basic ability of many beings," he declared, causing the man to freeze, "it is easy enough for a supernatural being to simply hypnotize whoever was in the way so as to not draw unwanted attention."

The chief shivered in response to that statement.

"Now, I am going to investigate inside it," he informed the man even as he felt the remnants of whatever had been on the plane waning.

There wasn't much to go off from this far way, just that whatever it was, it was old and powerful.

Moving towards the entrance to the plane, he waited for the stairs to be brought forward so it could be opened and he could enter it, an action that took far too long for his liking.

When everything was finally in place, he walked up the steps calmly before entering the plane.

The inside was spotless.

Which meant that whatever was responsible for the disappearances was at least sentient and knew to cover it's tracks.

That eliminated most elementals or demons from the equation.

Combining that with the ancient feel of the power and there was only really one option it could feasibly be.

An Apostle.

Of course, the real question was which Apostle?

There were no ghouls in the area so they had either created them and taken them with them, or they had simply completely destroyed the bodies instead of creating an army.

He was hoping for the first option.

After all, while an army of ghouls may have been annoying, it at least meant that they were useful to the Apostle, whereas if the Apostle simply disposed of the corpses, then that meant they had no use for it.

But he wouldn't hold his breath.

The feel of the lingering power told him that whoever had been on the plane was likely too powerful to need something as inconsequential as ghouls.

Was it possible that The Water Bottle had returned?

No… this wasn't her Modus Operandi.

Was it possible that another Ancestor had heard word of the Emiya boy's connection to her?

That wasn't impossible though even then it raised the question of why they were there.

He pushed the idea of figuring out the motive out of his mind.

He lacked any concrete information with which to figure out one yet, so until he possessed a better idea of what was happening, he would simply focus on discovering what he could about the situation.

Moving through the plane, he looked for anything that could indicate what had happened, searching for any markings or traces of magical energy that were stronger than the rest of the area.

Finding a seat where the magical energy was most dense, he took note of it before continuing onward to the cockpit.

Looking at the empty room he searched for anything out of place before his eyes lingered on something small but potentially important.

Moving to the controls, he noticed a panel with a small imperfection in the opening for one of the buttons.

It wasn't something most would notice but it was the type of imperfection that came from a magus trying to fix something they didn't understand.

Focusing on his magic circuits, he started to alter the form of the panel, pushing it aside to reveal the wires and components beneath.

And there it was.

The first true clue as to what had done this.

A tooth-mark.

It appeared that a large animal with sharp fangs had bitten into the panel and the magus who controlled it had attempted to fix the damage to avoid raising suspicions.

And now he wished he hadn't found that clue.

After all, there was only one ancient being alive that could repair things like that _and _control beasts.

Leaving the cockpit he immediately made his way towards the door and left it.

"You're back," the police chief said, "did you find anything?"

"Do you have the passenger list?" he asked, causing the man to blink before producing a document.

"Of course, that was the first thing we did when we found out that no one had left the plane," the man stated.

"What was the name of the passenger in row 3 seat D?" he asked the man who blinked before looking.

"It was a man by the name of Martin Rowan," the police chief responded.

"That… is bad news," he admitted with a frown.

"Why? Who is Martin Rowan?" the police chief asked.

"… It is an alias of Nero Chaos… the Tenth Dead Apostle Ancestor."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Tohsaka Rin could do little more than let out a yawn as she slumped at her breakfast table.

God she needed coffee.

Blinking several times she noted that she had automatically gone to the kitchen and made it without even noticing.

She yawned once more before lifting the cup to her lips and practically gulp it down despite how hot it was.

By the time she had finished, the cup was empty.

Releasing a sigh of contentment, she fully intended on waiting until the caffeine to kick in before getting some breakfast.

Until then she would simply try and figure out what to do.

She still hadn't identified or isolated the source of the strange wave of magical energy that had passed over her the previous day so her number one priority was to identify that.

Of course, that would mean patrolling the streets and keeping her eyes open for anything out of place.

She would have preferred to use familiars to keep track of everything in the city but in order to do that she would have to sacrifice a gem and with the next Grail War coming up she would rather not disadvantage herself by using one for such a basic trick.

Which left her with patrolling the area and hoping nothing came up when she wasn't available.

It was certainly not preferable but it was the only real option she had at that moment.

Perhaps if Kotomine hadn't mishandled her inheritance then she wouldn't have to be so frugal but as it stood, he had and she did.

Letting out another sigh, she shook her head.

It was no use dwelling on what-ifs… even if they were some of the more pleasant thoughts she ever had.

But they were just fantasy.

And she had to focus on reality.

Her stomach growled and she shook her head again.

The first part of reality was of course the need to sustain herself.

And so she rose from her seat and headed towards the kitchen to get a simple bowl of cereal.

It wasn't as if she couldn't cook anything for herself but she didn't have the energy, so she would simply settle for something quick and easy.

And it would deal with her rebelling stomach nicely too.

Just as she was pouring the milk a ringing assaulted her ears and she let out a groan.

Putting down the bottle of milk, she made her way to the phone before steeling herself.

"Hello, Tohsaka residence, Rin speaking, how can I help you?" she asked in as cheerful a tone as she could manage.

"Good morning Rin," the voice on the other end immediately made her grimace.

"Kirei… why are you calling me this early in the day?" she asked him, her grimace still tugging at her lips.

"I am phoning to give you a warning," the man sounded more serious than she had ever heard him before, "do not go out at night… something has come to town that is beyond your abilities to face."

She felt her teeth grit at that.

Kirei wasn't someone she liked but she knew he was aware of her abilities, having been the person who taught her in the first place.

"It's good to hear you have such faith in me Kirei," she responded, "and here I was thinking you just thought of me as a nuisance."

"Oh, you are a nuisance… however this is a serious matter," the priest responded, his tone level, "should you try to get involved in this matter, you will die."

He was speaking with such certainty that it was obvious what the man was saying.

"Very well, I will stay indoors until this threat has been eliminated," she said.

Not that she had any intention of listening.

She would just take more gems with her than she would have otherwise.

Just imagining the look on his face when she proved him wrong was satisfying… so just how satisfying would it be to _actually _see it?

And without another word, she hung up the phone.

It seemed that whatever had caused that sensation she experienced just the previous day had Kirei on edge.

She would definitely find it and she would deal with it herself.

Then he would have to respect her abilities.

She could barely keep the smile off her face as she returned to getting her breakfast.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou found himself once again walking to school, this time hoping he wouldn't come across Tohsaka.

The less time he spent near her, the less likely she was to figure out what he was.

But he couldn't exactly avoid her, both since that would require using his magecraft to know where she was and plausibly making her suspicious if she noticed him doing what he could to stay away from her.

So he would just have to try and act natural around her.

Not that it would be hard for him, what with his lack of biological functions to give his unease away.

But none of that mattered if he just got lucky and remained mostly unnoticed by her.

Walking along the street, he found himself unsurprised by the quietness of the area; it was early enough that it wouldn't be that busy yet.

But there were also a few less birds than normal, with one that sat alone.

In the end though, it was little more than a bird and he wasn't yet at a point where he would have to replenish his magical energy, so he quickly dismissed it.

For now, he would just have to go to school and deal with things as they came.

If he ever needed to replenish himself, then he would have to be careful of Tohsaka's presence… but it hadn't been a problem the last time he had gone hunting so it was plausible she wouldn't be an issue.

And so he carried on his way to school.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The bird watched as the red-headed boy carried on down the street.

He didn't seem to show any signs of vampirism but that wasn't a guarantee the kid wouldn't be one.

The fact that the boy didn't show any suspicion at it's presence only made it less likely that he was the one it was looking for.

So it would just wait and watch, just like all the others that were spread throughout the city.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Waver Velvet could do little more than collapse into his seat as he returned to his classroom after the meeting with the Lords had ended, all the while noting that the former King of Britain had followed him too.

"That… was tiring," he stated.

"Indeed it was," she responded with a tone of exhaustion, "I did not expect dealing with them to be so… taxing.

He gave a snort of amusement.

The idea of dealing with any Lord in the Clock Tower was bad enough; even Reines, probably the one who was the most positive towards him could prove tiring to deal with at times.

"You really didn't bother with politics in your day did you?" he asked, causing her eyes to avoid his own.

"In my day, I was the King and everyone listened whether they liked it or not," she responded, "here though…"

"Here they see you as a relic to research instead of a leader," he summarized, causing her to nod.

"Yes… it is most certainly disrespectful," she stated with a frown.

"Don't take it personally… society has moved on quite a bit but they're stuck in a time between kings and parliament," he told her with a shrug.

"While true… to be treated as an object to possess is insulting," she said and he found himself agreeing.

"Yeah… but that's just the way things are here," he pointed out.

She looked away at that.

"Still… at least I managed to get you under my authority for now," he decided to point out, "there was no guarantee I'd be able to do that after all."

The legendary King simply released a sigh.

"I'm sorry for putting you into such a position," she said and he blinked.

"It's fine…" he replied but the truth was a bit more annoying than that.

He had effectively been forced to ask favors from other Lords in exchange for this allowance.

Hopefully those favors turned out to be mundane, such as giving extra lessons to heirs to try and put them ahead of their peers, but there was no guarantee that it would be that simple.

"If there is anything I can do to aid you, then do not hesitate to ask," she said.

"You could always blow up the lords for me," he joked.

"W-w-what?!" she looked genuinely shocked by what he said but he raised his hands placating.

"It's just a joke," he told her without delay, "I didn't think you'd take it seriously."

She looked at him before releasing a sigh.

"Of course…" she looked relieved at that.

Still… new rule, don't joke around with the former King.

"Besides, I don't know if you could kill them all even if you tried," he said, his tone serious.

Her eyes narrowed in response.

"And what makes you think that?" she asked, "I will have you know, that as a servant my abilities were _restricted_… do you honestly believe there are people here capable of fighting against me?"

He blinked a little at that declaration but shook his head.

"You're definitely stronger than most modern Magi… but there are legitimate monsters here," he started to explain, "such as the Barthomeloi head; she's powerful enough to fight a Dead Apostle Ancestor and _win_… and that's not even counting the director."

The former Saber blinked at that.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"The director was a magus from the Age of Gods… he's even _older _than you and has had a lot longer to master his skills," he informed her bluntly, "there's no telling what he can do."

Arturia looked down at that.

Obviously she wasn't expecting to hear of people with such power.

The girl then looked at her hand before clenching it as her expression hardened.

"If there are magi here who could potentially defeat me, then that simply means I must train to get even stronger," she declared and he felt his jaw slacken at that.

"You expect to be able to get even stronger?" he asked her in disbelief.

"I was not even the strongest of the Knights of Camelot in my day," she said and he swallowed at that, "while my training to improve will require an immense effort, it should not be impossible."

The mere idea of her getting stronger was actually somewhat terrifying.

"Plus, with Avalon once again in my possession, dealing with damage shouldn't be an issue," she said with a confident smile.

"Well… if you need any help… don't ask me, I don't know who could teach you to be a better fighter," he stated bluntly.

"Oh, I do not require your help to find a mentor," she told him, "I will simply require transportation to reach her."

He swallowed nervously.

Just who in the world could the legendary King Arthur know that could teach her how to be a better fighter?

Shaking his head, he pushed that thought aside.

"Can you drive?" he asked.

"… I _could_… back when I was a servant," she responded.

"And now?" he asked.

"… maybe?" she responded.

"… I'll try and get you driving lessons," he responded.

"… thank you."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

School ended quickly enough as far as Shirou was concerned.

Now it was simply a matter of trying to avoid Tohsaka without her noticing.

"Oi! Emiya!" the voice of Matou Shinji cut in.

"Go away Matou," he responded without hesitation, he had no intention of putting up with the boy.

If the other boy had been less obnoxious then he may have but as it stood, he didn't feel like wasting his time on someone who simply wanted to look down on him.

Perhaps if he had still been blindly attempting to achieve Kiritsugu's dream then he may have; but learning of everything the man had done had dissuaded him from that path.

He still liked to help others but there was a difference between helping others and being treated like shit.

And as much as he may have questioned why he had survived that fateful day, he wasn't going to just put everyone else above himself.

There was of course another question concerning his survival that had been raised since Sumire had returned.

What if he had survived because he was destined to become a monster?

What if fate had interfered because he was supposed to become a Beast of Blades?

"What's the matter Emiya? Can't stand talking to your betters?" Matou taunted.

He turned to face the boy, his expression blank.

"And what exactly makes you better than me Matou?" he asked, genuinely curious as to why the boy thought he was better than him.

The glare Shinji sent him made it clear he wasn't happy at being questioned on that.

"How about the fact that you are a no-name orphan and I'm from a long lineage of nobility," the other boy declared with a grin.

"… your family must be really disappointed if that's all you can come up with," Shirou responded.

The way Shinji grit his teeth and twitched his eye, it became clear to him that he had struck a nerve… but then again, attacking his own lack of a family made it fair game as far as he was concerned.

"You…" the boy almost growled out.

"That's enough Matou, Emiya," Issei proceeded to step in.

It was only then that Shirou noted that the entire class was staring at them.

"There is no need for such hostility," the monk-in-training declared.

"… don't think this is over Emiya… I'll make you regret ever suggesting that," Shinji declared before grabbing his things and barging out of the room.

Shaking his head, Shirou picked up his own things and prepared to leave the classroom when Issei spoke up.

"I'm sorry about Matou's behavior Emiya…" the boy started before Shirou cut him off.

"You have nothing to apologize for," he pointed out, "Matou is the one responsible for that, you have nothing to do with it."

"Even so…" Issei started before another student spoke up.

"Yeah… Matou went too far there," Shirou noted that most the room seemed to be agreeing, "though I gotta say, I'm surprised you didn't punch him for that."

Shirou simply shrugged.

"He wasn't worth it," he responded without delay, "plus, if all he can bring to the field is his heritage, then that's worth nothing to me."

He finished picking up his things before making his way out of the room.

"Hello Emiya-kun," a voice said the moment he left the room.

"Hello Tohsaka-san," he responded, noting that she had actually waited for him, "do you need something?"

She nodded, even as he continued to make his way out of school, Tohsaka following closely behind.

"Yeah, first things first…" she said, "sorry about Shinji, he can be a real ass at times."

"I'm aware," he responded.

"Also… he _is _considered a disappointment to his family," she confirmed, "so he's probably going to try and get you back for that comment."

He found himself unsurprised.

"I'm not surprised," he admitted, "the fact he went straight for the family card says he doesn't have any achievements of his own."

Tohsaka chuckled at that before her expression turned serious.

"Now… for what I actually wanted to talk to you about," she said and he felt a hint of nervousness, "are you planning on doing anything tonight?"

"No, why do you ask?" he responded.

Her sigh of relief made it clear there was something up.

"Okay, if that's the case, can you avoid leaving your house at night?" she asked him and he frowned.

"Why?" he asked.

"Just…" she started before releasing a sigh, "just trust me… it'll be better if you stay indoors at night."

He was about to question her further before realizing just what she was doing.

She was trying to protect him from his own analysis since she couldn't find it's source yet.

"Okay, I'll trust you," he responded.

He saw the tension in her body release at that.

"Thank you Emiya-kun," she said as they left the school gate.

"So…" he decided to try and change the subject, "so… I take it you know Matou pretty well?"

She scoffed at that.

"Our families have been in contact for a couple of hundred years," she stated with amusement, "he thinks that just because we're both of a similar birthright, that he's entitled to be with me."

Shirou silently wondered just how sleazy the boy could get.

"I take it you don't have any intention of doing that," he said.

"I have about as much interest of marrying him as I do of getting a brain tumor," she said bluntly, "and since I'm the last of my family… I don't have to worry about an arranged marriage with him."

He nodded.

The idea of having to put up with Matou on a daily basis was not something he would consider pleasant.

"And what about you Emiya-kun?" she asked, "how well do you know Shinji?"

"Well… we were in middle-school together," he said, "he wasn't as bad back then but then one day he changed… haven't bothered speaking with him since."

Tohsaka released a sigh at that.

"I can imagine," she said, "the idea of putting up with him these days isn't pleasant."

He nodded in agreement.

They continued to walk along the street, this time she didn't leave early but despite knowing that he was hiding something from her, a comfortable silence fell between them.

"So… are you happy at home?" Tohsaka finally spoke up and he looked at her in confusion, "I mean… what Shinji said about you being an orphan…"

"Yeah… I have Fuji-nee acting as my legal guardian," he said, causing her to look at him in confusion, "I mean… Fujimura-sensei… she's my next-door neighbor."

She blinked at that before letting out a small chuckle.

"I guess that must leave your house pretty lively," she said, clearly already having had a class with the hyperactive teacher, "still… I never would've thought she'd be responsible enough to look after a child."

He let out a snort at that.

"Don't be mistaken, I'm the one who looks after her most of the time," he informed her, "Fuji-nee is so good at cooking that she can set water on fire."

That got a chuckle from the girl.

"Still… what I wouldn't give to have someone like her for a legal-guardian," she responded before letting out a frown, "all I've got is the priest at the church… and I'm sure he does what he can to piss me off."

"Sorry to hear that," he said.

"Don't be, it isn't your fault I have to put up with Kirei," she responded easily.

Again, another comfortable silence fell between them, this time extending to the crossroads where they would split.

"Well, see you later Tohsaka-san," he said as he started on his way to his own home.

"Yeah… stay safe Emiya-kun," she responded as she started on her own way.

He felt a sense of relief at that.

It seemed he had gotten away with walking with her this time.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to push his luck any further.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The bird locked its eyes on the red-headed boy.

The Tohsaka girl had called him 'Emiya'.

Tohsaka, the Overseer of the Fuyuki area and one of the founders of the Holy Grail War, calling a boy by the name of another long line of Magi.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

And so it followed the boy, keeping silent as it followed him along the street.

Eventually reaching a residential area, it felt a bounded field pass over it.

It was subtle.

So subtle it barely noticed it.

But it proved the boy was a magus.

Moving back out of the bounded field, it watched as the boy showed no indication he had detected it before entering one of the buildings.

Flying around, it tried to find a vantage point where it could see inside the building, while keeping far enough away that the Water Bottle wouldn't notice it if she was there.

Eventually, it found one, facing what was obviously a kitchen window.

And there it waited.

Eventually the sun went down and it watched as an unfamiliar woman entered the building.

And then it caught what it was looking for.

Entering the living room was Sumire.

He had found his prey.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

"So… you say Tohsaka wants you to stay indoors at night?" Sumire asked as she tried to consider just what was going on with the Overseer of the area.

"Yeah," Shirou responded, "I think she actually cares about me."

She almost scoffed at that.

"She won't if she finds out what you are," she informed him bluntly, "magi tend to make a habit of hunting our kind."

Shirou for his part released a sigh at that.

"B-but does she have to?" Taiga asked and she decided it was time to break it to the woman.

"It is the duty of the Overseer to ensure beings like us are eliminated," she explained, causing the teacher to grimace, "even if she _does _like Shirou-chan, she's still in a position where not hunting him could get her in trouble with the Mages Association."

The look of despair that crossed the brown haired woman's face made it clear she didn't like it.

But then again, she didn't like it either.

Hell, she was certain that if a magus ever discovered a method of blocking teleportation that the Queen of the Clock-tower would come hunting for her personally.

The woman had already gone out of her way to try and find and kill Ancestors whenever possible.

"So… there's no way out of it?" Shirou asked, his voice sounding tired.

"Not unless you can come up with something that will make the Mages Association tolerate your existence," she informed him.

After all, despite what she had said, Crown and Blackmore had both managed to ingratiate themselves with the Church and Mages Association respectively, but they were the outliers rather than the rule.

Shirou would have to accept that the chances of him being tolerated were extremely low.

Well… assuming the Mages Association and Church didn't lump him together with Curry De Marche as 'mostly harmless', but that was even more unlikely than Crown and Blackmore's positions.

"Then I guess I'll just have to stay away from her," Shirou said.

"Hopefully you'll manage to do that until you leave this place," she said.

"What do you mean 'leave this place'?" he sounded genuinely confused by that.

Sumire blinked a few times before realizing what he was saying.

"Shirou-chan… you _can__'t _stay here," she started.

"What do you mean he can't stay here?!" Taiga interrupted.

"I mean that this place is in too populated an area, plus a magus already knows about this place," she explained, "one day the bounded field around the property will be noticed and adding any more won't do you any good when this place is already known… since the main protection from the Church and Clock-tower is hiding a lair from them."

Shirou looked away, clearly unsure of what to say in response to that.

It probably hadn't occurred to him that he would have to leave this house behind one day.

"I see…" he responded.

"B-but…" Taiga looked genuinely upset at that.

"In the end, long-term planning is necessary for you to continue surviving," Sumire continued, "I at least can teleport, on top of that, my castle is at the bottom of the ocean."

"So… how long do you think I have before Tohsaka figures me out?" Shirou asked.

"I don't know," she admitted, "it is a pretty subtle bounded field but even the most subtle ones can be detected eventually… so I'll give you a hundred years tops, a decade at most if the Overseer is actively searching for magical phenomena… probably closer to a single year though."

She noted the way Taiga's face moved from relief, to concern to outright despair at those estimates.

"So I should probably start looking for somewhere else to set-up soon," Shirou however didn't seem too concerned.

"But Shirou… this house…" Taiga started to say before Shirou cut her off.

"Was left to me by Kiritsugu," he declared, "the man that lied to and betrayed me time and time again… I'm not going to worry about it too much."

She saw the way Taiga flinched at that.

Obviously the girl was still harboring some hope that the man had been what he portrayed to her.

But Sumire found herself doubting it.

The man had become famous for a reason and it wasn't just because of his family name.

"So, do you have any recommendations Su-I mean, Onee-chan?" Shirou once again corrected himself and she felt a warm fluttering in her belly at that.

"Hmm… well… somewhere isolated, hard to get to and off the record is your best bet," she started, "after all, it's easier to cover up the existence of a place when no one knows it exists in the first place."

Shirou nodded in acknowledgment.

"Would moving to somewhere just outside Fuyuki work?" he asked and she was about to respond when she froze.

"That… could work," she admitted after a few seconds of thought, "it could easily backfire if your hunters don't assume you left to escape them… but there's a good chance they will."

Shirou nodded.

"All right then," he started to rise from his seat, causing her to frown, "I'm going to go out, try and find somewhere that could work."

"Okay," Sumire found herself simply accepting that.

The sooner he found a location that could work as his Castle the better.

"B-but it's late, you shouldn't be walking around in the middle of the night!" Taiga spoke up, "besides, you need to get some sleep before you tire yourself out."

"Fuji-nee… I don't need to sleep," Shirou responded and the teacher froze before grimacing.

"S-surely you need to rest?" she asked him and he shrugged in response.

"Not really," he responded casually.

"Yeah… that sounds like some of the more powerful beings I know," Sumire admitted, it wasn't common but there were beings that had no need of rest at all… Rizo-Waal Strout was one such being, what with how he existed, trapped within a single instance of time, preventing his condition from changing in any way, either positive or negative.

But they were generally the exception rather than the rule.

She herself needed sleep, it was the only reason she ever stopped drinking after all.

"Some of the 'more powerful' beings you know?" Shirou clearly took note of what she said and she nodded.

"Yeah, it's not that common for someone to not need rest," she acknowledged, "will probably give you an advantage in the long run… more time to dedicate to improving yourself after all."

Shirou simply nodded in response to that.

After all, if he didn't need to rest then that meant roughly an extra six to eight hours a day to work on things.

Her mind started to consider that before an idea popped out.

"Oh… there's an idea," she said, causing both of the others in the room to look at her, "you have so much spare time… so why don't you take up a martial art or something!"

"Eh?" Taiga sounded surprised by that.

"I guess I could try taking up Archery and Kendo," Shirou said and she found herself frowning.

"Why Kendo?" she asked, "why not something more… practical?"

She could understand why someone would practice that in the modern day, but it didn't change the fact that it was a martial art adapted for sport and not actual combat.

"Because I can't find a teacher for anything else?" Shirou said.

"… oh…" she muttered.

Perhaps she could call in a favor to get someone to teach him properly.

She started to try and think of names of people who owed her for something… before ticking them off when she remembered they were either dead, long dead or that it was actually her who owed the person… who was also dead.

Frowning she silently considered the fact that most of the people she once knew were now dead.

Not surprising really.

"Damn… I can't think of anyone who owed me who's still alive," she admitted.

She _really _had a lot of unpaid debts in her life.

Oh well, nothing she could do about it now.

"Well, I can probably adapt what I learn to actual combat anyway," Shirou said, "making mistakes won't be as fatal for me as it would with a normal human."

She blinked.

Yeah, she could easily give him that one.

Hell, he was probably harder to kill than she was.

"I guess that's true," she acknowledged, "well then, I'll see you in the morning Shirou-chan~"

"Yeah… see you both tomorrow," the boy responded before he made his way to the exit.

"Oh yeah, Shirou-chan… could you be a dear and get your Onee-chan some more Sake on your way back?" she asked, causing him to look at her blankly.

"I'm underage," he responded.

"Didn't stop you before," she pointed out, remembering how much booze he had the first time they met.

"… I'll see what I can do," he relented before leaving the room.

A silence fell as she was left alone with Taiga.

"Well now Taiga-chan, would you like to join me for a few drinks?" she asked.

The much younger woman looked reluctant before finally sagging.

"… I guess I need one after that," and with that, the woman went to the cupboards and pulled out her own bottle of Sake before sitting down next to her and opening it.

"Cheers to us!" she said, prompting the girl to sigh.

"Yeah… cheers."

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that's all for today.

Shadow Out.


	10. Chapter 10

Hello everyone.

Anyway... I've made a change to my update schedule now.

Going to update 1 fic a week instead of dumping them at the start of the month (smaller targets more often so I can't procrastinate too long in the month).

I will also say this...

_**Everyone who is complaining about Shirou's image of Kiritsugu being tainted and wanting him to "learn the truth" about Kiritsugu... you should probably stop here.**_

_**The simple fact of the matter is that as far as I am concerned, everyone who would have been willing to explain Kiritsugu's motives to Shirou are dead.**_

_**His motives weren't known anywhere near as much as his body-count.**_

_**And as much as people may like him, it doesn't change the fact that he was a mass murderer and lied to Shirou before.**_

_**Yes, a lot of it was lies of ****omission but he did outright lie to Shirou when training him.**_

_**So if you want Shirou to "learn the truth" as you call it, well, it isn't going to happen.**_

Anyway... The same thing as last time.

_**A fic inspired by this one.**_

_**"That's Hell You're Walking Into" by Jackie Avocado**_

_**He's going about this a much different way to what I am, effectively deciding to start at the Grail War with all the history in the background and a much greater focus on BAMF than I have.**_

_**So check it out if that sounds interesting to you.**_

Anyway... time to start the chapter.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

The night was nearly silent as Rin wandered the streets, hoping to find at least some hint of whatever had come to Fuyuki and gotten Kirei to warn her to stay uninvolved.

But he issue was proving to be somewhat awkward given she had no real basis for where to start her search.

She had already been to the shopping district and attempted to identify anything unusual there even if she didn't put that much effort into the matter; it was unlikely for something to try and hide in a place like that after all.

The more likely places for something to be staying were the old mansions or potentially even the old Einzbern manor in the forest.

She had already checked the abandoned mansion located close to her own house just the previous day, it had been the most likely source for the wave of magecraft that had washed over her after all.

Which left the forest as the more plausible of the two remaining locations given the proximity of the second mansion and the church.

Staying near a former executor wasn't a smart move after all.

She nodded as she decided she would at least check it out before moving to the Einzbern mansion.

Either way she was going to be spending a good several hours searching the city.

Of course, it would also mean forgoing a good chunk of sleep but keeping the city safe was her job as the Overseer, so she would just have to bite the bullet and get on with it.

If she had a more sympathetic guardian then she could have potentially gotten them to tell the school she was sick but there was no way Kirei would do that at the best of times, let alone when she was already going behind his back to investigate things on her own terms.

Releasing a sigh, she started making her way towards the other side of the city.

There weren't many people on the streets but it was still early enough that seeing the people moving through the city wasn't anything unusual.

Some such people included a couple of classmates obviously talking about a movie on their way home, a salary-man who'd clearly finished his work and a large man in a black coat who looked like the sort of persons she should call the police on.

But she had more important matters to deal with.

Her first step was to check out the so called 'ghost house' that had once belonged to the Edelfelts before they had handed it over to the Clock Tower.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Emiya Shirou reached the South-Western edge of the forest during his wanderings.

He was going to try and find a clearing where he could potentially construct a new home for himself that wasn't too out of the way but also not easy to find.

That would make the matter much more complicated.

Moving through the tree-line, he started through the area, his facsimile of eyesight growing strained at the darkness that engulfed the forest as the canopy grew thicker and blocked out more of the light from both the city and the full moon as he went deeper.

He did however find himself growing curious as the light trickled through the leaves.

He had never really bothered taking walks like this, generally only going places with a specific goal in mind and normally during the day.

To experience the forest at night and when he wasn't more focused on replenishing his magical reserves or surviving a spar with Sumire was a relatively new thing for him.

He silently considered analyzing the area around him but that was the sort of thing that had gotten Tohsaka on his case in the first place, he had no idea where she was or if there was anyone else in the city that would react to his magecraft in such a manner.

Beyond that, there was also the other matter.

He didn't actually _need _to do that.

If he was hunting then that would have been one thing but he was just looking for a place to move to and it wasn't even a desperate matter either.

So if he did end up running into Tohsaka he could at the very least say that he needed some fresh air and had decided to go for a walk.

It was a pretty bad excuse but it at least beat 'I am actually a dead apostle looking for a location for a castle'.

He was certain the truth would go down just _wonderfully_.

Deciding it was probably safer to not risk drawing attention to himself, he decided to simply use his facsimiles of senses to look at the forest like a normal human would.

It would take a long time to find a location doing it that way, but at the very least he wouldn't risk drawing anymore attention to himself.

And so he continued his walk.

He had all night to search so time wouldn't be too much of an issue.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The bird watched as the boy walked into the forest.

That was good.

The forest was his domain.

That would make the hunt fall even further into his favor.

Now it was just a matter of waiting for the origin to arrive.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Kotomine frowned as he attempted to isolate whatever variables would allow him to track the Ancestor that had come to Fuyuki.

Of course such a matter would always be easier said than done but it wouldn't stop him from trying.

"I assume I cannot rely on your aid in this matter?" he directed towards the blonde king who was currently sitting at the table, his posture lax as he drank some of the wine from his vault.

"What do I care if some beast decides to eat the humans of this era?" the servant asked dismissively, "they are not worthy of the life they possess."

He expected such a response.

If he was perfectly honest with himself, he too didn't truly care about the people Nrvnqsr Chaos would devour, he was more concerned about the church finding out and stripping him of his position in Fuyuki for his negligence.

There was even the matter of Tokiomi's daughter.

He didn't want her getting herself eaten trying to hunt down a monster like Chaos; if she was then he wouldn't be able to see the look in her eyes when he revealed the truth of the role he played in making her an orphan.

Then there was the matter of Emiya's current condition.

He hadn't yet gotten any other opportunity to plant more seeds of contempt concerning Emiya Kiritsugu in the boy's mind.

Lastly there was the entire issue of the Holy Grail itself.

He doubted a Dead Apostle would know the truth behind what the Grail was supposed to do; not many did in the first place after all, but even believing the Grail to be something as simple as a giant mana battery was enough for a magus of Chaos's renown to do things genuinely horrendous.

And so he would attempt to deal with the Apostle to the best of his abilities.

He would have already sent a request for aid from a member of the Burial Agency if it wasn't for Gilgamesh's presence and the dozens of children being used as a battery for his Noble Phantasm.

But in the end, all he had to do was figure out how to get the former alchemist to leave the city, not actually eliminate him.

He was not foolish enough to believe he stood a chance against such a being.

Attempting to actually fight him would just be a convoluted method of suicide and he had better things to do than get eaten for no reason.

Of course, actually getting the Ancestor to leave was easier said than done.

He wasn't even certain he could identify a way to get the beast to leave full stop.

At the same time, Nrvnqsr Chaos didn't often stay in one location for long, generally doing what he was there to do and then disappearing again.

So there was the small chance that he would leave of his own volition before causing too much of a stir.

Regardless, the first course of action would be actually tracking the monster.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Rin released a sigh as she checked the so called 'ghost house'.

It had only required a cursory once over to ensure it wasn't being used as a lair.

The sheer lack of magical phenomena was proof enough that it hadn't been used since the third grail war.

So she shook her head and left the area.

That was one location off her list of places to check out.

The next was the Einzbern Mansion.

She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the long trip there.

Hopefully it wouldn't end up being a complete waste of time.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou froze.

He could feel _something _pass over him as he moved further into the forest.

It definitely felt like magecraft.

Probably closer to the bounded field that surrounded his house than anything he had ever actually cast.

He was sorely tempted to analyze the area and see if his hunch was right, but it was magical, meaning that doing so could draw unwanted attention to himself from whoever had set it up.

So he shook the feeling off and started to continue on his walk.

At the very least he could potentially say he had just gotten lost and confused when getting some fresh air.

Moving further and further he noted a distinct lack of any further feelings like that, something that he felt himself frowning over.

What had he stumbled upon within the depths of the forest that magi had put at least some protection around?

He felt his curiosity pique as his feet continued to carry him forward, the thoughts of what he might find nagging at the back of his mind.

After what felt like hours of walking he finally stumbled upon something that he couldn't believe.

A three story mansion.

It was sitting there, clearly unattended for years, while the front door and even some walls had been reduced to rubble.

Walking closer, he contemplated the structure before his curiosity got the better of him and he said two very simple words.

"Trace On."

And with that, the area swam into his mind as he spread his magical energy over the area to analyze everything he could.

The first thing he noticed was that the house was uninhabited.

The second thing he noticed was the shrapnel and residue that had been worn by time.

Then there was the shoddy wiring that had clearly been added quickly and with an obvious focus on practicality instead of aesthetics.

Meaning whoever had been in the house last had been using it for something specific.

But now…

Now it was abandoned.

This… was too good to be true.

There was no way this building had just been abandoned to time.

Someone must have recorded where it was, the mere fact that there was wiring in the place meant it had been used recently.

So there was no way it was off the map.

But…

There wasn't anyone there at the moment.

So keeping tabs on the place wouldn't hurt.

Beyond that, he had the skills needed to repair the mansion and possibly even upgrade it beyond what it had been before the damage had been inflicted to it.

So if no one tried returning to the place, then he could potentially move in without anyone truly noticing.

Meanwhile, if they _did _return, he could easily leave the place alone.

His mind was immediately torn from his thoughts about the mansion when a bird entered the area he was currently analyzing.

Jerking his face to look at it, he saw a pitch black bird as it landed on the edge of the mansions roof and looked at him.

Looking it in the eye he tired to figure out _what _that thing _was_.

Because despite looking like a bird, it most certainly was _not_.

Birds were flesh, blood, bones and feathers… whatever this _thing _was, it had none of those things.

It wasn't a mineral either.

He honestly couldn't wrap his mind around what it was.

His perception and mental processing was far beyond anything a human brain could possibly handle but this thing… he doubted anyone could understand what it was.

It was amorphous, it was dense, it was unnatural… and it was _alive_.

The thing continued to look at him and he felt his unease growing.

Just what was it?

And why was it staring at him?

Even more importantly…

How long had it been following him?

Because it was obvious it was doing just that.

"Trace On."

He muttered to himself as he focused on the blades that made up his body, flooding them with as much magical energy as he could manage without breaking them.

He didn't know just how dangerous this creature was after all, so reinforcing his body to it's limit was the natural first step in preparing for the potential fight.

The bird continued to stare at him and he made the decision to preempt whatever it might attempt.

"Trace on," and without wasting another second, he projected a copy of one of the blades he had recorded from his museum visits, endowing it with the property of momentum and fired it like a missile towards the bird.

The blade tore through the bird before stopping.

It didn't surprise him.

For all it's lack of size and ability to fly, it was shockingly dense.

Seeing the bird simply continue to watch him, uncaring of the blade that now impaled it made his nerves grow.

Was… was he dealing with something like himself?

Something that could shrug off injuries such as decapitation?

Because if so, then he didn't know how he would compare.

After all, all he could do was slash and stab things… and those things were powerless against beings that didn't have a set form.

Then _it _appeared.

At the edge of his senses, a significantly larger and heavier version of the bird appeared in a humanoid shape.

Diverting his facsimile of sight from the bird to the new threat, he noted the bird take flight and head towards the being that had appeared, eventually landing on it's shoulder and merging with the rest of the mass.

Looking at the creature, he saw a large man with gray skin and hair that was only slightly darker and while the body looked to be covered in a long black coat his analysis told him otherwise.

The being was naked and simply shaping it's outer layer into a form that resembled clothing.

It also meant it didn't have to worry about ripping it's clothes when it morphed.

He could probably do with taking a cue or two from that himself.

"Who are you?" he asked the being that resembled a man.

Without saying a word, a giant wolf-like creature erupted from the being; it's teeth as sharp as knives and fur as black as tar and it's facsimile of musculature being closer to a bear than a dog.

Had it been any closer he would have barely had enough time to react to it but at that distance, he had ample time to prepare for the beast as it charged him, it's jaw slathering and an unnatural growl that bordered on a gurgle emerging from it's throat.

Dodging the beast wasn't difficult courtesy of him already reinforcing his physical attributes and he found it open as he projected a blade and struck.

The blade barely cut into the beast, its density making it closer to a rock than flesh as the projected blade got lodged into it's shoulder before breaking under the strain.

Almost immediately it turned to bite.

Teeth tore through skin before impacting on steel and Shirou jerked his arm away, losing a large patch of skin in the process.

The main body however, remained still, watching with hawk-like eyes as Shirou put some distance between himself and the wolf.

Looking at his arm, he almost grimaced at how much skin was ripped off even as the beast started to devour what it had ripped off.

His skin was a liability here.

With practiced ease, he did away with his skin, converting it into more blades and reinforcing them alongside the rest of his body.

Now the question was how to hurt the beast.

A sword had failed but then again, it was just a projection, it's blade hollow and lacking the structural integrity of the blades that formed his body.

The beast looked at him once again and growled as it pounced in his direction.

Focusing on the blades that made up his hands, he expanded them, merged them and kept their structure as strong as possible as he created the closest thing to claws he could.

The result made his hands significantly larger but having five claws, each with enough strength to rend steel would be worth it.

As the beast reached him, he lashed out with his right hand, the weight and reinforced strength combining into momentum probably closer to a hydraulic ram than a punch, allowing him to knock the canine back, his claws ripping into the beasts flesh before it was thrown away.

But despite such a blow being more than enough to kill a man, he knew the damage done to the beast was minimal.

Seeing it rise from the ground without any hint of struggle, the wounds he had inflicted nowhere to be seen even moments after being applied was just proof that his suspicion about the strength of the beast was correct.

He immediately found himself wondering just how he could even hurt the beast, his attacks could split through its body but it lacked any vital organs so he couldn't kill it with precision but to make matters even worse, he couldn't inflict enough damage to kill it when its entire body simply reformed in a manner more akin to water than flesh.

But it was clear to him that he would have to figure out at least something if he wanted to survive fighting this thing, his stamina wasn't the best given his magic circuits weren't the most capable of handling magical energy.

Wait… that was something he could always try.

The beast lunged at him once again and he braced himself.

Before its jaw could latch onto him, he caught the grappled the beast, using his reinforced strength and his steel-based musculature to match the monsters strength.

Then he reformed his teeth into proper blades and bit.

After a couple of seconds of sucking, he finally started to feel a trickle of magical energy flowing from the beast and into his own reserves.

Only then did he notice his mistake.

Another beast, this one resembling a six foot tall and fifty-foot long crocodile emerged from the original mass and charged towards him.

Releasing his grip on the wolf-like creature he prepared to dodge before finding a jaw gripping his arm.

And then the giant monstrosity bit down.

Almost immediately he felt his reinforced body give out beneath the giants maw, sheering off his entire right shoulder and taking the arm with it, both of which the beast proceeded to violently chew on before swallowing.

"Did you really think I would let you feed off me Emiya Shirou?" the main mass finally spoke.

"How do you know my name?" he asked, hoping that whatever this monster was would be talkative enough to waste time monologuing.

The humanoid creature looked at him with its head tilted.

And then the crocodile like creature lay its eyes on him again.

Using his left arm, he latched onto the body of the wolf-like beast and with all his strength, he threw it straight into the mouth that was now lunging towards him once again.

The moment the wolf hit the back of it's throat it slammed closed, trapping the first of the two beasts within.

Shirou took that moment to jump as far away as he could, focusing on his magical energy and his missing shoulder, prompting the blades to grow out once again.

Honestly, this was getting rather annoying, first Sumire now this guy?

His mind focused on that.

Things Sumire had mentioned before returned to his mind and he found himself considering what he had seen.

This being was showing traits he had developed.

Was it possible?

Was this the guy who Sumire had said he had managed to do the same thing as?

He wished he had learned the name of the being who he resembled, then he could at least ask about it.

It didn't take long for his arm to reform and he noted that the main mass didn't appear even the slightest bit concerned about the matter.

Not that he could blame it, it had produced a being even bigger than itself from its own body, regrowing a limb was nothing special in comparison.

Of course, the real issue was exactly how he could survive facing off against a beast like that.

He was forced to turn and run as the beast lunged towards him again, its own legs more than capable of letting it keep pace with his own reinforced ones.

Looking up he noted a hole in the wall of the mansion and jumped.

The crocodile-like beast snapped at him, narrowly missing him as he landed inside the building and started to run through the corridors, keeping his analysis of the area going even as he ascended to the third floor.

He suspected the beast had enhanced senses but he had a detailed diagram of everything around him.

And once again he found despair fall upon him.

The main mass had acted once again.

This time releasing _dozens _of beasts that was moving to swarm the mansion.

He slowed to a halt as the realization fell upon him.

There was no way he could win this.

The only reason he had survived this long was because he had gotten lucky that the monster had decided to toy with him.

If he could produce this many beasts, he could have easily had them swarm him and rip him apart over and over again, forcing him to expend his magical energy to restore himself until he eventually ran out and perished.

He had lost.

Something entered his analysis range and his mind froze.

No.

No.

_Why the hell was Tohsaka there?!_

Shit.

He couldn't just let her get herself devoured by this monster.

Gritting his teeth, he decided to do probably the most stupid thing he had ever done.

Pushing his reinforcement to the point where it was almost breaking his body, he barreled through the wall, falling down to the ground outside and impacting it hard enough to form a small crater beneath him.

He faced up and looked straight into the eyes of the main mass.

It actually looked confused.

"I was not expecting you to leave the building so quickly," it spoke, "I would have thought you would have left after meeting some of my beasts."

"I lack the limitations of a human brain," he decided that distracting it wouldn't hurt, "so I can use structural analysis on everything around me."

"Interesting," the beast responded, realization now shining within its eyes, "so you already knew of the beasts I sent after you."

The way it spoke made Shirou feel distinctly uncomfortable.

There was a complete lack of malice within its words.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, hoping that he could figure out what it was after before Tohsaka arrived.

The crocodile like beast came around the corner, its jaw held wide and Shirou clenched his fist.

He was going to die now no matter what he did, the least he could try and do was die quick enough that Tohsaka wouldn't reach the area before then.

No.

He wouldn't be able to.

She was moving much faster than she had been when she had hit the edge of his scanning, obviously noticing it once again and deciding she wouldn't lose it this time.

The crocodile like beast was charging towards him and he made a last ditch decision.

Pushing his legs are hard as he could, he charged the main mass, his clawed hands now ready to rip through it regardless of how inconsequential they might be.

Lashing at the main body, he found his claws ripping through the mass far more easily than he expected, an act that resulted in him tearing off a far larger chunk than he anticipated.

A chunk that immediately jerked to life and knocked him down.

He lay on the ground, as the giant crocodile like beast merged into the mass and the beasts that had all followed him into the mansion emerged and followed suit.

He tried to push himself up but the mass refused to give way, instead it simply increased in density.

He tried to push again, only to find his body starting to crack under the pressure of the mass pinning him.

The main body however simply stood, the chunk that had once been the front of its chest missing as it stared at him with an expression he couldn't place.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Rin felt her heart race as she rushed towards the Einzbern manor, her body reinforced to it's limit.

It was here!

Whatever it was that had come to Fuyuki was here.

And she would be the first to find it.

Reaching the edge of the forest surrounding the Einzbern mansion, she slowed her approach, it would be foolish to rush in without a plan after all.

Slowing to a crawl she moved from tree to tree until she was at the edge.

Peeking out from behind the tree, she felt her blood run cold.

There were _two _creatures in the clearing.

One looked like some kind of spiky golem that was currently pinned under a mass of black.

The other, was a pale man with gray hair and a dark trench-coat.

She remembered passing the man on the street before… but to see the mass that was pinning the other creature…

She had heard of that ability.

Nrvnqsr Chaos.

The Tenth Dead Apostle Ancestor.

Her body started to shake as she realized exactly why Kirei had told her to stay out of the matter.

It was well known that the first ten Dead Apostle Ancestors were monsters among monsters, being closer to phenomena than actual living beings.

To kill one of those things required specific methods that bypassed their immortality, ways of killing that which cannot be killed.

She had nothing even close to that.

Even if she had managed to complete the Jewel Sword of Zelretch there was no guarantee she could kill one of them.

And here one such monster was, pinning another she didn't know anything about.

She had to get out of there.

Taking a step back she tried to sneak away.

And then a crow cawed.

Looking towards the edge of the building, she saw it, a pitch-black bird looking directly at her.

Almost immediately the ancestor looked at her, eyes showing no hint of compassion before a beast emerged from his body.

"Dammit Tohsaka! Get out of here!" the other being shouted, its voice almost familiar.

However the beast was already charging at her and her legs were failing her as her body froze.

"Trace on!"

A rain of swords slammed into the beast, thirteen blades, each humming with magical energy, impaled it with enough force that they shot straight through it and into the ground, effectively pinning it.

The ancestor turned to face the metal creature once again before speaking.

"Oh? You would choose to protect that morsel despite your current situation?" the ancestor asked the metal creature.

"Dammit Tohsaka! Get out of here now!" it repeated.

The Tenth started to hum in thought before it looked at her and released an almost vicious smile.

"Very well, I shall offer you a deal Emiya Shirou."

She froze.

What?

"What?" the metal creature responded with clear surprise itself.

"I shall spare that girl and in return, you shall explain to me everything you have learned about your reality marble," the tenth said.

But Rin's eyes were drawn towards the being currently trapped by the ancestor.

It had called it Emiya Shirou.

But…

But that was impossible.

There was no way that could be Shirou.

"It… it lets me record and reproduce any sword I see," the creature said.

Now that she knew it was apparently Shirou, she could hear him within the excessive metallic grating that came from its throat.

"Specifically swords?" the ancestor queried, "or does it record blades in general?"

The being responding to the name of Shirou looked down for a few seconds before responding.

"Blades in general," it responded, "I haven't found a bladed weapon I can't record yet."

"Have you witnessed any magical blades yet?" the ancestor continued.

"No," the steel beast responded instantly.

The ancestor proceeded to rub its chin in thought even as the beast that had been pinned by the blades ripped them from the ground and started to return to the Dead Apostle.

"I see," the ancestor continued, "and what of your magecraft in general?"

Rin couldn't stop herself from looking at the metal man as he spoke again.

"Outside of my reality marble, all I can do is structural analysis, reinforcement and projection."

"What of your element and origin?" Nrvnqsr asked.

"Both 'sword'," the being that was apparently Shirou responded.

The ancestor nodded.

"Very well, then I have a few suggestions for you," she jerked as it said that, "consider the conceptual aspects of a sword instead of just the physical, after that, seek out an Apostle name Louvre, he is a subject of mine with a penchant for collecting mystic codes… and in about fifty years return to this city… depending on your abilities you may be capable of benefiting from witnessing a Grail War."

Rin couldn't stop herself from staring even as the mass that was crushing the metal being slithered off it and rejoined the Dead Apostle Ancestor.

"Do that, and you may one day rank amongst us," and with that, the apostle turned and walked towards her.

He was too close…

And then he passed her and continued to walk.

"I look forward to seeing your progress Emiya."

The metal being rose from its position on the ground and she finally got a good look at it.

Scale-like skin, clearly formed of swords now that she looked, hands that were too large and shaped into terrible looking claws and on top of that, swords that jutted out of the top of its head almost like hair, all the while, it was wearing a ruined copy of the Homurahara school uniform, one that was completely missing an arm.

After an agonizing minute, her legs finally gave out as the adrenaline pumping through her veins subsided.

The metal being however simply stood as its scales started to slowly morph.

Smoothing out, gaining a pale complexion and eventually starting to look like skin, it eventually moved onto the blades that resembled hair, eventually converting into auburn hair and losing the rigidity it possessed before.

She was left sitting across from Emiya Shirou before he looked her in the eyes.

"You shouldn't have come here Tohsaka," he stated.

She couldn't respond, her heart was still beating so fast that she couldn't even breathe properly.

"Still… I guess at least we both survived that," he continued before moving over to her, his walk so smooth that if she hadn't seen him being pinned by Nrvnqsr Chaos, he would have never noticed he had just been in a life or death situation.

He held his hand out to her and she found herself staring at it.

She… she didn't understand what was going on right now.

But…

But he _had _just accepted a deal with a Dead Apostle Ancestor to spare her life.

Tentatively she took his hand before finding herself being pulled up gently.

Her legs started to give out again but he moved to support her before putting her arm around his neck and holding her steady.

"Come on, let's get back to town," he said before he started to walk, taking her with him.

"… that feeling yesterday… that was you wasn't it?" she finally managed to speak and that was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

"… yeah, sorry about that," he replied, "but… Onee-chan didn't want me revealing myself to you… though she didn't seem to care about revealing me to _him_."

Shirou sounded almost bitter and she found herself wondering just what sort of monster Shirou's 'Onee-chan' was to be able to talk to a Dead Apostle Ancestor.

"… I want to meet this 'Onee-chan' of yours," she said; she may not have been in the best condition but she needed to know what she was dealing with.

Shirou simply grimaced.

"… I guess there's no way out of this is there?" he asked and she shook her head.

It was clear now that this was indeed the same person she had recently gotten to know, the same little boy who had caught her attention when he had tried over and over again to make a jump that he kept failing to make.

"How long have you been like this?" she asked, she wanted to know if that had all been a lie.

"Well, I met Onee-chan a few months after my adopted father passed away," he said and she felt a sense of relief spread through her.

She had heard that the boy had just recently lost his father when he had tried that jump.

Meaning whatever had happened afterward is what had caused this.

"As for the state my body is in right now…" he started before trying to think.

"A year at least," he finished, "though that's kind of hard to say for certain, it was a pretty gradual process."

She swallowed and nodded.

This night had certainly been exhausting and learning that Emiya of all people was actually aware of the supernatural world was a shock.

"So… do you want to come to my place?" he asked and she felt her cheeks flush.

"W-w-w-what?" she stammered out, surprised at how direct he was.

"I guess that Apostle was being honest with this deal but… it's probably safer for you if you stay somewhere safe," he continued, "and my house if probably the safest place in Fuyuki right now."

She had to blink at that.

"Why is your house the safest place in Fuyuki?" she asked.

"Well, it has a bounded field that detects hostile intent and warns me of it, then there's me and Onee-chan staying there," he explained.

She was so tempted to ask about this 'Onee-chan' of his but there was a certain hesitation in his tone that made it clear to her that he was calling her that on purpose.

So he probably wasn't going to tell her outright.

"… fine…" she accepted, "I'll go to your place for tonight… but don't try anything funny."

"What do you mean?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Well… I'm a girl and you're a boy…" she said and he simply tilted his head.

"You're a girl and I'm a sentient mass of swords," he stated and she froze, "I literally don't have any hormones to cause those issues."

She felt her jaw slacken at that.

He… he was a _sentient mass of swords_?!

Just what had she gotten herself into?!

"Are you okay?" he asked, "you don't look too good."

"I… I'm fine…" she responded in a daze.

It seemed the boy she was the most interested in was literally incompatible with humanity in general.

Just her luck.

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that's all for today.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Shadow Out.


	11. Chapter 11

And I'm back again.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

Shirou didn't know what he was going to do.

The whole intention had been for him to keep his presence a secret from Tohsaka, yet here he was literally taking her to his home after they were attacked by some beast that effortlessly toyed with him.

He had said about making sure she was safe… but there was more to it than just that.

Sumire needed to know about this and they needed to figure out what they were going to do now that Tohsaka knew.

He hoped he wouldn't be forced to flee so soon after finding a castle to call his own… but he doubted there was much else he could really do if Tohsaka decided to report his existence to the mages association or church.

He pushed aside the niggling thought at the back of his mind that Sumire might want to kill her.

Despite her vampiric nature, Sumire had never actually shown any real malice around him.

And he wanted to believe she was truly a good person.

Of course, he was fully expecting her to disappoint him just like Kiritsugu had.

But she had taught him when Kiritsugu hadn't.

Had shown him what he was doing wrong when Kiritsugu had misled him intentionally.

Had helped him learn of the lies that he had believed for so long.

But he understood that she was a vampire… and not just any vampire but one of the most powerful ones in the world.

However she was proving useful and wasn't causing any trouble… well, unless he counted giving Fuji-nee a headache to be trouble.

"S-so…" Tohsaka started to say before she trailed off.

He waited for her to speak, leaving them in an awkward silence for a minute or so.

"H-how did you become what you are now?" she asked and he shrugged.

"I just practised with my reality marble," he told her, "I turned my body into blades as practise and eventually started doing it subconsciously… now though… I have some real trouble even getting my skin back, let alone the rest."

She cringed at his statement.

"Y-you _lost _your original body?" she sounded almost scared as she said that and he nodded.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good way of describing it," he acknowledged.

She stared at him, her expression showing disbelief.

"Y-you don't even sound like you care…" she muttered.

"Why would I?" he asked, "I mean, my reality marble is all about blades and since a reality marble is the person, isn't it only natural I would become a bunch of blades?"

Tohsaka's jaw fell slack.

"Y-y-y-you idiot!" she shouted and he decided to actually look at her instead of just analysing her, "that isn't what a reality marble is at all!"

He studied her for a few seconds before coming to a single conclusion.

She was serious.

"So what is a reality marble?" he asked; Sumire had admitted back then that she wasn't a magus and sucked at explaining things like that, but it had worked for him so why would it be wrong?

"A reality marble is the art of developing a mental landscape that the user can temporarily overwrite reality with via the world egg theory!" she practically yelled, "what you're doing is… is… I don't even _know _what you're doing!"

Shirou considered what she said and dismissed it.

"Well, whatever I'm doing is working just fine," he dismissed, causing her to gape at him, "besides, Onee-chan is a bit… limited… in her knowledge of magecraft."

Tohsaka's eye twitched.

"... if you weren't made of metal I'd probably punch you for that," she stated before huffing in annoyance.

"Still… Onee-chan admitted she didn't really understand Reality Marbles, just knew how to recognise people who have them," he admitted to her.

The girl took on a look of concentration before a look of realisation seeped onto her face and it slowly drained of colour.

"Emiya-kun… this Onee-chan of yours… wouldn't happen to be…" she swallowed nervously before continuing, "the Black Princess?"

"Who?" he asked.

The breath of relief that she released at that told him that whoever this 'black princess' was, they were probably pretty bad.

"Thank god…" she murmured under her breath.

Shirou decided he would have to ask Sumire just who this 'princess' was.

But until then, he would simply continue walking Tohsaka to his house.

He just hoped they could come to a peaceful resolution.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Sumire couldn't stop herself from feeling groggy as the front door opened and the sound of feet echoed through the hallway.

Looking to her side, she saw Taiga slouched on the table, currently snoring with a line of drool falling from the side of her mouth.

Pushing herself up she let out a yawn before the door opened.

Looking at the new occupant, she blinked several times before confirming that not only had Shirou appeared but he had also brought someone else with him.

"... is that… Fujimura-sensei?" the person that looked distinctly like a girl asked.

"Yeah… Fuji-nee should have gone home by now," Shirou said, his tone bland.

She considered the situation for a few seconds before she felt pride well up in her chest.

"Oh! Has little Shirou-chan gotten himself a girlfriend?!" she asked, causing the girl to splutter in response.

"Only if you consider surviving an encounter with some amorphous blob that spits out giant monsters as 'getting a girlfriend'," Shirou responded with his expression blank.

She nodded as she took another swig of Sake.

Little Shirou was growing up so quickly…

Wait…

She spat out her Sake as she finally processed what he said.

"YOU WHAT?!"

Taiga jumped but she didn't care.

"W-w-what's going on?!" Taiga asked.

"Do you know what I'm talking about?" Shirou asked, though his tone indicated it was a rhetorical question.

"Of course I do!" she declared as she felt her eye twitch, "so would you care to explain why you got into a fight with Nero Chaos?!"

"He hunted me down," Shirou said without hesitation.

She froze.

Nrvnqsr hunted Shirou down?

Why would the ancient alchemist do that?

"U-uh… Shirou… why is Tohsaka there?" Taiga asked and she froze.

Tohsaka?

"Shirou… why did you bring a magus home with you?" she asked.

"Tohsaka stumbled upon the situation," he said without delay.

She frowned at that.

"So where is Nero now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he responded and she felt herself grow agitated.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to escape him when he's got your scent?" she asked, wondering if the boy actually thought he was safe just because he got away once.

"Given how easily he overpowered me," Shirou said, "I'm guessing it's pretty much impossible."

Well… at least he wasn't fooling himself about the matter.

So why did he go back home?

… oh… shit…

"... don't tell me you're leading him here to try and pit him against me?" she asked, feeling concern well up in her chest.

If she was sober then she would probably be able to tear him apart without much difficulty… but in her current state she would probably be torn apart by the walking den of beasts.

"No," he responded, causing her to blink, "I don't know why… but… he actually let us go."

She froze yet again.

Nrvnqsr Chaos… _let them go_?

"That... " she tried to find her words, "how did you get him to spare you?"

Shirou looked at Tohsaka before speaking again.

"He offered me a deal," he told her, "I tell him everything about my magecraft and reality marble and he would spare Tohsaka."

That definitely didn't make sense.

Unless…

Oh…

"D-did he happen to give you advice after you told him about your abilities?" she asked, earning a nod off the boy.

"Yeah, he said to seek out some apostle named… Louvre," he said, "and to return here in about fifty years time for something called a 'Grail War'."

She frowned at that.

Grail War… Grail War… she was certain she'd heard of that before...

After several seconds she finally remembered.

Zelretch had helped the Tohsaka, Makiri and Einzbern set up some ritual in Japan.

That was about all she really knew except it had something to do with Dagda's Cauldron and Heroic Spirits.

Wait, no, they called it the 'Holy Grail' didn't they?

Well it didn't really matter.

What mattered was that Shirou had just admitted that Nrvnqsr had offered him advice.

"So… how much damage did you take during his test?" she asked, causing him to tilt his head.

"I lost an arm," he said, "and he almost broke all the swords in my body when he crushed me."

She nodded.

That was completely unsurprising.

Shirou hadn't even been able to push her, so facing off against someone like Nrvnqsr would be well above his ability right now.

Still… the mere fact Nrnqsr had deigned Shirou worthy of advice said a lot in and of itself.

She wasn't a magus, so her estimation of Shirou's potential was extremely limited, but Nrvnqsr was a different matter entirely.

He was a master of magecraft.

If he had decided Shirou was worthy of being given advice, then that meant that the boy had far more potential than she had thought.

Glancing at the girl he had brought with him, she noted the way the girl was currently glancing at his arm, obviously unaware of his ability to regrow his limbs by replacing them with blades grown from his main body.

"So… why did you bring the Tohsaka girl here?" she asked, her eyes narrowing as she considered the possible outcomes of this meeting.

"Well… she learned about me," he said, "so I brought her here so we could figure out what we're going to do now."

She was about to suggest simply killing the girl before freezing.

No… that wasn't an option.

The girl was a Tohsaka, so killing her would draw too much attention… then there was what Shirou had said.

He had traded information on his Reality Marble in exchange for the girl being spared from Nrvnqsr's bloodlust.

Meaning he wouldn't accept that possibility.

Honestly… he just had to make things awkward didn't he?

Frowning she considered the possibilities before releasing a sigh.

"Well, I suppose there are only really two options," she said, "option one is… not one you'd agree with so let's just skip over to option two…"

She saw him frown and glanced over at Taiga before saying what she had to.

"Leaving Fuyuki."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Rin froze.

Leave Fuyuki?

She had not expected that course of action from the woman in front of her.

It wasn't exactly difficult to figure out exactly who the dark haired woman was; the overpowering scent of alcohol, her casual demeanour and obvious power screamed of one thing.

This woman was Sumire.

The Twenty-first Dead Apostle Ancestor.

At the very least she now understood why Shirou had been involved with Chaos.

But...

"W-w-what do you mean leave Fuyuki?!" Fujimura-sensei cried out, clearly not happy with the Apostle's statement.

Admittedly, seeing her English teacher being so unfazed by the talk that was going on around her was a bit of a surprise.

"Exactly that," the apostle responded with a tired sigh, "Tohsaka is the Clock Tower's Overseer in the area; she'll have to report our existence to that organisation as part of her duty… and there is no way Shirou can take on the Barthomeloi woman right now."

Rin felt the blood slowly draining from her face.

It… it wasn't right that Shirou would have to run away just because he had decided to trade his own secrets for her safety.

Hell, she had even heard that Sumire was one of the less problematic Dead Apostles in the world, generally being a bigger risk to bars and dedicated alcohol shops than humans.

But it was her duty as the Overseer of the area to report their existence to both the Clock Tower and Church.

If she didn't, then she would be putting herself at risk if the truth ever came out that she hid the truth from them.

But… Japan _was _a small island that was generally ignored for the most part… so maybe… just maybe she'd be able to hide it from the Clock Tower.

"I understand," Shirou spoke up, his tone just as bland and almost mechanical as it had always been.

At least now she knew it was because his throat was made of blades.

"I guess we should get ready to leave as soon as possible," Shirou spoke up and she found herself desperately scrambling for a way to stop the boy from leaving.

"W-w-wait!" she called out, causing the rest of the table to look at her.

Swallowing nervously, she pushed through her nerves and spoke.

"There's no need to leave yet," she said.

"Tohsaka… you know what we are now," Shirou said, his voice level, "of course we have to leave."

"Well… the first option is to kill her but I don't think you'll agree to that one," the drunken woman said casually.

"Sumire-san!" Fujimura-sensei shouted, obviously scandalised at the statement.

It also confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the woman was indeed the Water Bottle herself.

"That's not happening," Shirou declared while staring at the woman.

"Yeah yeah… I figured," the vampire responded before releasing a sigh again, "well, I guess it's about time for us to get ready to go… the sooner we leave the more time we put between us and our hunters."

She grit her teeth and closed her eyes.

"You don't need to leave," she repeated, "Emiya-kun traded his secrets for my life… I owe him at least enough to not report him to the Church or Clock Tower."

"Do you really think we can trust the word of a magus?" the Ancestor responded and she felt her heart skip a beat, "it's her duty to report our existence and she could be punished severely if she's discovered to have covered up such a thing."

"T-that's…" even if Emiya was some sort of self-made apostle, she didn't want him to leave.

Clenching her fist she rushed through everything she knew; there had to be _something _she could use to satisfy the apostle.

"B-but… Shirou hasn't even finished his education yet!" Fujimura-sensei said and the vampire looked at her blankly.

"So? It's not like he's going into the standard human workforce," the Water Bottle responded before releasing a sigh, "I would invite you to come with us… but you wouldn't survive where I plan on taking Shirou."

Wouldn't survive?

Her eyes widened as she realised just what the woman was talking about.

Her Castle.

The exact location was unknown but it was at least known it was located at the bottom of one of the world's seas or oceans.

If she took him there… then there was no way he'd be found again.

But how could she stop it?

"Isn't there some way to make sure Tohsaka doesn't tell anyone?" Fujimura-sensei asked, "like, some kind of magic of secrecy or something?"

"Magecraft doesn't work like that Fuji-nee," Shirou said.

"Yeah… even I know magecraft doesn't work like that," Sumire said in agreement.

Then it finally clicked.

"A Geass!" she spat out, causing the three at the table to turn and face her, "I can sign a geass to stop me from acting on this information."

"What's a geass?" Fujimura-sensei asked.

Sumire however was staring at her with narrowed eyes.

"A magical compulsion that has severe consequences if it is broken," the apostle declared, "why would you be willing to place yourself under such a thing?"

She took a deep breath.

"Emiya-kun is the only reason I'm still alive right now," she started to explain, "it wouldn't be right for him to pay for saving me."

Silence fell upon the room as both Shirou and Fujimura-sensei looked at the vampire.

"... what conditions are you thinking of placing on yourself?" the ancient being asked and she felt relief flow through her body.

"To not report your existence or intentionally reveal your presence in this city _unless _you bring harm to the residents of this city," she said, hoping that would be enough.

The vampire sat, obviously thinking about her conditions.

"And what if you're found out?" Shirou asked.

"If I sign a Geass then I can at least pretend I was forced to do so to avoid being killed by the Twenty-first," she informed him.

She was certain that most magi would accept that excuse; after all, she wasn't Barthomeloi, so trading her silence for her life would be considered reasonable.

Shirou nodded.

Fujimura-sensei however looked almost hopeful.

"... dammit," the vampire finally said, "I suck at this sort of stuff!"

She had to blink at that.

"Fine," the vampire said, "for now I'm going to accept it… but I'm going to get a second opinion on the agreement."

She nodded.

Hopefully the geass would be enough to ease the vampire's mind.

"So… how do we do this?" Shirou asked.

Now she just had to walk them through the creation of the geass.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Shirou felt relief wash over him as the geass contract was finalised.

He may not have known how to form a contract like that himself but analysing the paper it was being written on made it obvious to him that it was legitimate.

Of course, there was something that he noticed that Sumire hadn't.

"Tohsaka, can you add an extra clause in there?" he asked, causing the girl to blink, "just that you won't intentionally reveal our nature to anyone."

He saw Sumire blink before she cringed.

Obviously she hadn't noticed that small loophole.

Tohsaka also blinked before nodding.

"Sorry, didn't really consider that one," she said before adding that restriction to the contract.

Shirou decided to believe her. Nothing about her body had indicated she had been nervous about that, meaning it likely had been a genuine mistake.

"Shirou-chan… are there any other loopholes you can see in there?" the elder drunkard asked.

"Not really," he admitted, "but considering _you _are the person who's taught me the most about this stuff, I could easily be missing things."

The vampire pouted in response.

"Is that really such a bad thing?" she asked and he stared.

"The first time we met, you opened my circuits, told me my element and origin and then left for years," he pointed out, "I'm only at the level I'm currently at because of my own experimentation."

Tohsaka cringed at his statement but he decided to leave it be.

She was a magus, so learning he was so lacking in tutelage was probably a bit of a shock to her.

"And done," Tohsaka spoke up., "now I just have to sign it."

Shirou nodded before noticing the girl worry her lip.

"Uh… do you have a knife I could use?" she asked him and he tilted his head.

"Oh? You actually plan to sign in blood?" the closest thing to a mentor he had said, surprise clear in her voice.

Tohsaka simply stared at her in response.

"I'm serious about not wanting to screw over Emiya-kun for saving me," she stated, her voice firm, "signing this is little more than a show of intent."

Sumire stared at the girl for several seconds.

"What?" Tohsaka responded, clearly growing nervous at the ancient creature's gaze.

"Anything with a foot in the magical world has ulterior motives," the drunkard said, "I'm just trying to figure out what yours are."

Tohsaka's face started to flush as she started to splutter.

"W-what makes you think I have ulterior motives?!" she demanded, "just because I don't want him to leave doesn't mean I like him or anything!"

The room fell silent.

"Uh… Tohsaka… no one was accusing you of liking me," Shirou felt like pointing out.

The girl's face flushed even more.

And then Sumire started to snort, before it transformed into laughter.

Fuji-nee simply sat there, her jaw wide open.

Shirou for his part simply pushed it aside.

Tohsaka had probably already had a bad enough night as it was.

"Su- I mean, _Onee-chan_," he said drawing the alcoholic's attention, "can you stop laughing at Tohsaka, tonight hasn't exactly been easy for her."

"Sure, sure…" the woman responded easily, looking significantly more at ease now.

Tohsaka for her part, simply looked away with a grimace on her lips.

"Well, you were going to sign the geass weren't you?" he said before bringing up a blueprint for a simple kitchen knife and projecting it onto the world, "here you go."

"T-thank you Emiya-kun," the girl responded, clearly still trying to get her bearings back.

"W-w-wait!" Fuji-nee called out, "is it really safe for Tohsaka-san to cut herself without a first aid kit ready?"

"Fujimura-sensei, I'm a magus," Tohsaka stated, her composure returning as she said that, "I've been doing much more dangerous things since I was a toddler."

"Like getting involved with Nero," Sumire piped in.

Tohsaka was clearly about to respond before she noticed what the woman said.

"Of course not! I'm not stupid enough to throw myself at an Ancestor!" she responded, "tonight was an exception, I didn't know it was something so dangerous."

"But you knew it was something dangerous," the ancestor said with a smirk.

Tohsaka flinched.

"All I knew was that it was something dangerous and that this is my city," the girl said as evenly as possible, "it is my duty to at least investigate the matter."

"You almost got eaten," Shirou deadpanned.

"S-so did you!" the girl responded.

"Part of me did… but at least he was actively hunting me," Shirou pointed out, "plus, I'm a bit harder to kill than you."

"There's a limit to how much damage someone can survive," Tohsaka declared, "I mean, what if he took off your head?"

"I'd have grown it back when I needed it again."

The girl froze.

"You're joking right?" she asked.

"Nope," Sumire was the one to speak this time, "when I was testing him out, I took off half of his head, nothing but metal in there."

"WHAT!" Shirou focused as Fuji-nee erupted from her seat, "you took off half of Shirou's head!"

"Yep," Sumire responded easily, "just a little test of how immortal he is."

"And what if he _hadn't _been able to survive?!" Fuji-nee was definitely angry now.

"Oh please… it's not like I _started _with his head," the drunkard dismissed, "besides, I was already pretty sure he could shrug off that type of stuff just from how his body is made up."

Fuji-nee simply stood there, clearly trying to find the words to say but failing at every turn.

"It's fine Fuji-nee," he said, causing the woman to look at him, "I already knew I could survive losing my head, it's no big deal."

His surrogate sister looked at him with an expression that could only be called pitying but she proceeded to sigh before taking her seat again.

Before anything else could be said, Tohsaka nicked her finger and allowed the blood to slowly seep out from her skin.

"I'm going to guess you can project a quill too?" she asked and he nodded before doing as asked.

Soon the girl had loaded up the quill with some of her blood before muttering her aria and sealing the cut closed.

Without another word, she proceeded to sign the paper.

Shirou noted the magical energy reacting to the blood and sealing the contract.

"And it's done," Tohsaka said before glancing over the occupants of the room, "so… what now?"

"Now, Fuji-nee can take you to the guest wing," he said, "I have some things to discuss with my mentor here."

Sumire blinked before looking at him with a hint of confusion.

It didn't take long for her expression to adopt a look of understanding.

"O-of course…" Tohsaka said as she handed the geass contract to him before standing up.

"Can you-" he started to ask Fuji-nee but she jumped from her seat before wobbling a little.

"Of course! Come on Tohsaka-san!" the clearly tipsy teacher said before leading the youngest girl in the room out.

Silence fell on the room as he was left alone with the ancestor.

"So.. .who is Louvre?" he asked.

"One of Nero's subordinates," she answered easily, "he's Nero's heir should he ever be slain."

Shirou stared.

"They actually expect a monster like that to die?" he asked.

"Even Nero would be pushed to fight the White Princess at full power," she explained, "and he's actually the current individual hunting her down."

Shirou nodded.

Of course there would be even greater monsters out there.

He should have known.

"Still… Louvre is… not really Ancestor material," she continued, causing him to focus on her, "he's a pretty good magus, probably top twenty in the world right now… but he lacks anything that truly makes him stand out, it's probably why he keeps collecting Magical weapons whenever he can."

Shirou nodded again.

What she just said about the vampire corroborated what the monster had told him.

"So, do you know where I can find him?" he asked.

"No clue," she answered immediately, "I told you, he's a top tier magus, his bounded fields are strong enough that his castle practically exists in another dimension from what I've heard."

Shirou grimaced at that.

That would definitely make hunting him down more difficult.

He also highly doubted he would be able to get anything that could draw him out of hiding either.

Meaning he would just have to work to get more skilled and figure out how to track the collector.

At least there was something else he could focus on in the meantime.

"And what about this 'Grail War' thing he mentioned?"

Sumire shrugged.

"I don't know much about that," she responded, "just that it is some ritual set up by the Einzbern, Tohsaka, Makiri and The Kaleidoscope."

He blinked.

"Kaleidoscope?"

She blinked before facepalming.

"Sorry… the fourth Dead Apostle Ancestor, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg," she said, "one of the most powerful being around… and that's _after _he crippled himself using too much power at once."

Okay, whoever that was, it was clear he wasn't someone to mess with.

"And what does he do?" he asked, wondering what it was that made this person so powerful.

"The Second True Magic," she responded, "the Kaleidoscope… basically… he does things with parallel universes."

"And how does that make him so powerful?" he asked.

"Guy can pull magical energy from other universes to supercharge himself," she said, "... he can probably do a lot more than just that, but that's all I really understand."

That explanation was more than enough as far as he was concerned.

An ability like that would mean he could easily throw around as much power as he wanted without having to worry about running out.

Which naturally raised the question about the ritual he helped set up in Fuyuki.

For someone like that to take an interest in it would probably mean it was something major.

In the end though, there was still much he would have to learn.

And it was clear to him from the events of that night, that he would have to learn sooner rather than later.

"So… what else can you tell me about the other ancestors?"

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Tohsaka couldn't stop herself from feeling light headed as Fujimura-sensei led her to Shirou's guest rooms.

The casual way Shirou spoke about how unimportant his head was to his survival just made her feelings towards him even more conflicted.

Something so hard to kill that even ripping its head off was something that really should be reported.

But her own feelings towards him had gotten in the way of her doing her job.

Still… at least she had an excuse ready for why she didn't report their existence if it ever got out.

Glancing at Fujimura-sensei, she considered the woman before speaking.

"So… are you a Vampire too, Fujimura-sensei?" she asked, causing the woman to splutter.

"Hell no!"

She had to blink at that.

"A magus?" she would have preferred it if Fujimura-sensei had been a vampire, because having a magus hanging around an ancestor was never a good sign.

"No," the response was quick.

She frowned.

"So what are you then?" she asked, causing the woman to stare at her.

"I'm a normal human," her teacher stated.

She blinked.

That… wasn't what she was expecting.

"I didn't expect a normal human to be so comfortable around a pair of blood-suckers," she commented idly.

"I knew Shirou for years before that drunken bitch showed up," the English teacher said while crossing her arms, "I'm sure she's trying to steal him from me."

She could do little more than blink as Fujimura-sensei started to sulk.

"When did you learn about the existence of the supernatural?" she asked.

If it was a recent development then she could easily hypnotize the woman without much issue, but if it had been longer then that could cause complications.

"I think… it would have been almost four years ago now," the woman responded, "it was the day after my first meeting with that Vampire."

She cringed.

Okay, that would be too long for her to safely adjust the woman's memories.

"So how did you meet her anyway?" she wondered.

"Shirou brought her home one night," the older woman responded with a shrug, "it was the middle of winter and she was freezing cold."

Rin snorted.

The Water Bottle was a Vampire, of course she'd be freezing in winter.

"Yeah, I didn't learn until the next day," Fujimura-sensei responded before looking down, "... maybe if I'd just kept my mouth shut Shirou wouldn't have ended up like this."

Rin immediately focused on the woman.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"... Shirou's father taught him wrong… because of advice I gave him."

She stared.

"What do you mean 'taught him wrong'?"

"The vampire said Shirou was using his nerves as magic circuits or something," the teacher admitted and she stared in disbelief.

"He used his _nerves _as circuits?!" she exclaimed.

The nod she got in response said everything.

"I guess… it is probably my fault that Vampire managed to get to him."

Rin took a deep breath.

There was no use getting worked up over the matter.

It was perfectly obvious that Shirou wasn't doing that anymore.

Hell, it was even _likely _he didn't even have nerves to turn into magic circuits anymore.

"Well… I suppose if he was taught incorrectly and then had something like _that _teaching him, it's no surprise he ended up so messed up," she decided to say, "I mean, if it was an apostle who knew magecraft then he probably wouldn't be like that."

The teacher blinked.

"What?" Fujimura-sensei asked.

Rin released another breath before continuing.

"I think… the reason Emiya-kun is the way he is right now is _because _of how poor his education in magecraft was," she stated, causing the woman to blink, "if he had been building himself up from a solid foundation then he probably would have never tried whatever he did to make himself what he is now."

There was no other explanation for it.

If his tutelage was so bad that he didn't even have a foundation to work off of then it was only natural he'd do things too dangerous for a normal magus to attempt.

It was even possible that he didn't even understand the theory behind a reality marble despite possessing one.

Of course, the mere fact he possessed one at his age was already insane enough.

Fujimura-sensei continued to look at her before a forlorn expression started to appear on her face.

"... if only you found Shirou before that bloodsucker," the tone in her English teachers voice made her look down.

If she had learned he was a magus when she had first seen him, then it was entirely possible none of this would have happened.

She shook her head.

"Well... I guess I'll let you go to bed now," the teacher said.

"Thank you Fujimura-sensei," she replied, "I will have to get up early tomorrow to get my uniform from home, so you probably won't see me tomorrow morning."

The older woman blinked before sighing.

"I'll let Shirou know," she responded, "he'll probably be able to wake you up if you're late."

She blinked before nodding.

"Good night Fujimura-sensei."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

The journey hadn't been long but she already felt her heart racing as the taxi stopped near a lake.

"So… exactly who are you going to meet?" the driver asked.

"That is none of your concern," she declared, causing the driver to swallow nervously.

"Never mind then," the man muttered.

Opening the door, she proceeded to leave the vehicle, already knowing that the ride was being paid for by Lord El-Melloi.

Taking in the fresh air, she made her way closer to the lake, ready for what would be in store for her.

Finding a spot on the shore where the driver could not view what she was about to do, she placed her hands on her chest and closed her eyes.

There, perfectly melded with her body it existed.

Taking a hold of it, she pulled, drawing out the sheath and manifesting it once more.

Dropping to her knee and dipping it into the water, she waited.

"Why have you returned?" the main voice she had been left with over the past few years said as the water rose and formed into the Lady of the Lake.

"Oh great Lady of the Lake, I seek your aid," she spoke formally, hoping that her request would not be rejected immediately, "I have recently discovered that there are those in control whom may be more powerful than myself… I seek your guidance in the way of combat."

"Your request is denied," the ancient fae responded without delay.

She felt a grimace spread across her face.

"May I enquire as to why?"

"I cannot help you," the Lady stated and she frowned.

"But you were the one whom taught Sir Lancelot, surely you can help me become stronger?" she asked.

"I found that boy as a child, I could build him from the base up," the water spirit said, "you are too old."

She could do little more than grimace.

The idea of being unable to grow strong enough to face the potential threats in the world was definitely a reason for concern.

"Is there not some way I can become stronger?" she asked the fairy.

"There is always magecraft," the response made her grimace.

She may have had some basic training in the skill but the sheer amount she would have to improve in the art before it was worth using was too great.

"Is there no other way to improve?" she asked, causing the fae to still.

After several seconds it spoke.

"There is one other option," the legendary creature said, "however, there is no guarantee you would survive attempting that training."

Her eyes widened.

No guarantee she would survive?

Just how extreme would the teaching have to be to be potentially lethal for her?

"What must I do?" she asked.

"Go to the Isle of Skye and find a path to the Reserve there," the spirit stated, "there exists a being there that may be capable of training you should you prove worthy."

She swallowed nervously.

The Isle of Skye.

If that was where she must go then there was only one possible individual that the Lady of the Lake could be speaking of.

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes.

There was no guarantee that she would be able to leave that land once she entered.

However, should she gain the tutelage of that person then there were only two potential outcomes.

Either she would die, or she would grow stronger.

"Thank you for your time," she said as she rose from her kneeling position, "I must leave now."

"Farewell Once and Future King," the ancient existence spoke as she made her way back to the car.

She would have to speak to Lord El-Melloi before she attempted to seek the tutelage of someone as lethal as Scathach.

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that's all for today.

Shadow Out.


	12. Chapter 12

Hello everyone.

Now, I have a couple of things to say firstly.

There are a few place names here that people may not be familiar with. To summarise, they're in Scotland.

And there was one particular review that I feel the need to respond to specifically.

One person saying that "The Isle of Skye is completely separate from the world". I just have to say... look at a map. It is a _real location._

After that... there is another point I need to make.

Some people are clearly misunderstanding Sumire. I will admit that a part of that would be me being terrible at writing drunken speech and also feeling that it would get annoying to read. So to summarise... she's DRUNK. She doesn't think things through properly and the only reason she's still alive is because of her Marble Phantasm, access to teleportation and the fact no one really cares about her enough to put the effort into trying to kill her.

She's not an expert on anything other than booze.

But anyway... now that that is over... let's just get on with the fic.

XXX Chapter Start XXX

"What?" Waver wasn't sure he heard the former Saber correctly.

"I need transportation to the Isle of Skye," Arturia Pendragon declared and he rubbed his forehead.

"Why do you even want to go there?" he asked, it wasn't like there was anything worth worrying about there outside of some old myths. But even if those myths had been true, they would be irrelevant now that the Age of Gods had ended.

"There is a teacher available there," she replied.

He stared at her.

"You want to go on a wild goose chase to the middle of nowhere because you think there is someone capable of teaching you living there?" he said ,his voice straining at the folly of it all.

"No," she answered, "the Isle itself isn't what is important… it is merely the gateway to The Land of Shadows."

He binked.

"That place won't exist anymore," he informed her.

"It still exists," she responded, "however, it requires accessing the Reverse Side of the World to reach there."

"Which can't be done," he replied.

"It can be, I myself was resurrected there," she said and he grimaced, "The Lady of the Lake can pass between the worlds at certain locations where both her power is at its greatest and the barrier is weakest."

He frowned as he tried to figure out what she was planning.

Eventually he gave up.

"And how do you plan on accessing the Reverse Side of the World?" he asked. Such a thing was anything but simple. And to make matters even worse, if she was anyone else then she would probably die of Mana Poisoning the moment she entered that place.

She took a deep breath before holding her hand to her chest. A golden light started to shimmer around her hand before she pulled it away slowly, the mist following and condensing into a beautiful gold and blue sheathe.

"This is my method of accessing it," she said firmly.

He could believe it.

Even from where he was sitting, he could feel the overwhelming nature of the sheathe she had just produced.

"It was designed to allow me to dip into Avalon for protection," she stated, "however, the process of entering Avalon should be close enough to entering the Land of Shadows for it to work."

Waver released a sigh.

She was so lucky he was on her side right now.

"Miss Pendragon… I would recommend not being so open about your tools in the future," he pointed out. He may have been the one asking how she planned on crossing the barrier that separated the worlds but he had assumed there would be some spell or ritual that could be used. An object of such obvious power however could easily be stolen if its existence was known.

"If I did not already trust you, I would not have shown you this," she replied and he blinked.

"You trust me?" he asked, earning a nod off the girl, "why?"

"You did not need to aid me," she responded, "and… as much as I disagreed with the man, Iskandar was a man worthy of respect… and he saw something in you, so I shall trust his judgement."

He felt a smile tugging at his lips.

To hear her speak of her respect for his king was gratifying to say the least.

"Fine… I will arrange for a plane to Inverness and then a Taxi the rest of the way," he informed her.

"Thank you Waver Velvet," she responded.

"So… who exactly is this teacher you're seeking out anyway?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Scathach, the teacher of Cu Chulainn."

He blinked.

That Fraga Freelancer would probably kill for the chance to meet her. Not that it would be feasible, the Reverse Side of the World would kill her in an instant even if she managed to reach The Land of Shadows.

Of course, there was one thing that he didn't quite understand.

"Is she still alive?"

Arturia offered him a wry smile.

"Even if she isn't… The Land of Shadows doubles as the land of the dead," she pointed out and he felt his jaw slacken in response, "she shall be there… one way or another."

He nodded.

"All right then," he acknowledged, "I'll just go and make the arrangements."

"Thank you Waver Velvet," she said and he released a sigh.

This was probably going to cause one hell of a headache for him.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

"Tohsaka, wake up."

Urrghh…

Rin felt consciousness return to her slowly. It was nothing unusual; she was not even close to being a morning person at the best of times.

But this was a little worse than normal.

"Breakfast is ready," the voice said and she finally registered what was wrong.

Her eyes shot open as she sat up, her body tense.

It took a couple of seconds longer to process who it was that was waking her up.

Emiya Shirou.

But why was he there?

… looking around the room, she slowly processed that it wasn't her own before the events of the previous night started to filter back into her mind.

"... ugh…" she groaned out.

She had seriously screwed up hadn't she?

"I am going to assume you're not a morning person," Emiya said, his tone so bland it felt like he was mocking her.

But… he wasn't wrong.

"No… mornings are bad," she groaned out, uncaring of how proper her speech was.

"Do you want any coffee?" he asked and she nodded.

"... the strongest you have," she told him and he nodded before turning around and leaving the room.

She took several deep breaths before rising from the bed and stretching. It wouldn't fix her morning haze, but it wouldn't hurt.

After releasing a yawn, she started to try blinking away the tiredness from her eyes before giving in and sighing.

It seemed she would just have to go to breakfast as a walking corpse.

… and she just realised that she would probably be having breakfast _with _an actual walking corpse.

What had she done to deserve this punishment?

Was it her disdain for Kirei? Did god hate her having negative feelings towards a priest?

Shaking her head, she rubbed her temples and checked her state of dress. It was her normal casual clothes of a red sweater and a short black skirt with black leggings. Not the most comfortable thing to sleep in but she didn't exactly have many options when she hadn't been planning on sleeping here.

And at least Emiya had a decent bed.

It was a bit of a surprise given what she had learnt about him just the previous night.

A body made entirely of swords… capable of shrugging off what would be lethal injuries to any human.

And beyond that, Fujimura-sensei had shown her own issue with Emiya's condition.

But then again, what else should she expect from a person taught by one of the Twenty-Seven… even if they were considered one of the least hazardous of the group.

Making her way out of the room, she followed the hallway before finding an open door and looking inside.

The first thing she saw was a large selection of various foods spread across the table, food whose scent assaulted her nose and immediately caused her mouth to start watering.

Sitting at the table, an oversized bottle of Sake in hand and swaying in an oblivious manner was the very Apostle that had corrupted Emiya.

"Your coffee is ready Tohsaka," Emiya's voice called out and she looked into the kitchen to see him lifting a cup and turning to face her.

Looking into his eyes she saw a certain level of artificiality she had never really noticed before, as if his eyes themselves were fake.

Then again, they probably were fake.

"Thank you Emiya-kun," she said as she made her way to him, ready to accept the mug out of his hands before he laid it on a counter and turned away, "awfully cold of you Emiya-kun."

She wouldn't admit it, but the fact that she was so close to him when he put it down stung.

"Sorry Tohsaka, but you're tired and I would rather not have to replace my mugs if possible," he responded without turning around.

She pouted in response.

"Making that face won't change my mind Tohsaka," he said and she cringed.

Oh yeah… he saw via analysing the area around him.

"Sorry… it's just…" she started to say before stalling.

"You're struggling to process my nature?" he piped in.

"Y-yes! That exactly," she agreed with a firm nod.

The Water Bottle coughed but she ignored it.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just a sword," he said in such a matter of fact tone that it was obvious he neither saw it as good or bad.

"How can you be so comfortable with that?" she asked before taking her first sip of coffee.

"Well… Sumi- I mean… _Onee-chan_," he said and she glanced at the Apsotle who let out a beatific smile, "explained reality marbles to me-"

"Incorrectly," she pointed out.

"At least she admitted she didn't really know what she was talking about," he responded, "unlike my adopted father who actively sabotaged my lessons."

She grimaced at that.

"But she told me about Reality Marbles, I did some experimenting and the experimenting worked," he summarized, "if it didn't, then I would've tried other experiments until I found something that worked."

She blinked.

"So… exactly what _did _she teach you anyway?" she asked.

"Not much," he acknowledged, "she just opened my magic circuits, told me about Reality Marbles and told me my element and origin."

She blinked.

"And she explained Reality Marbles wrong," she stated.

"Hey! I'm not a magus!" the drunkard cried out, "cut me some slack."

She blinked.

Hearing an apostle sound so petulant wasn't something she had expected.

"You've had centuries to learn about it," she shot back.

"Millenia," the vampire corrected.

"That just makes it worse," she deadpanned.

"I've spent almost all of my life drunk," the vampire responded, "do you really expect me to go out of my way to learn that sort of stuff?"

She felt her jaw go slack before she rubbed her forehead with her free hand.

This was certainly not what she expected from what was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in existence.

"Can you even count to a hundred?" she asked, her irritation slipping through her facade.

"... in some languages," the woman responded with a frown, "only about a dozen though."

Rin blinked.

She had not expected a serious answer from the woman.

"Tohsaka, Su-Onee-chan… can you stop bickering," Shirou asked, "it's pointless for both of you."

Rin groaned in response.

"Yeah… I need my coffee anyway," she responded before taking another sip of her mug.

"She started it," the vampire responded with a pout.

"I don't care," Shirou's response was short and brutal, earning a 'tsk' from the older vampire.

"You make a pretty lousy ototo you know," the woman declared.

"Does that mean I can stop calling you Onee-chan?" Shirou replied without pause.

"Nope~!"

"Shame."

Rin couldn't stop herself from blinking at the interaction.

It was surreal to actually see a Dead Apostle Ancestor acting in such a casual, outright friendly manner.

Combined with her first encounter with one nearly ending with her getting eaten, she couldn't bring herself to understand how such a useless layabout could exist in the same league as the monster from the Einzbern mansion.

She took a deep breath before continuing to drink her coffee. She needed all the help she could get to wake up.

"Sorry about this Tohsaka," Emiya said and she found herself blinking owlishly at him, "I guess Onee-chan can be a bit hard to deal with."

"... Emiya-kun… she exists in the same league as that monster from last night," she pointed out, "I'm surprised you aren't suffering from a headache comparing them."

"Tohsaka, my head is made of steel," he responded blandly, causing her to twitch.

"Please stop reminding me," she muttered.

"Anyway… just let me know when you're ready to leave," Shirou said, "I'll take you home just in case you run across Chaos again."

She nodded in understanding.

She stood absolutely no chance against Chaos no matter how hard she tried.

"Thank you Emiya-kun."

"Don't worry about it."

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Sumire watched as Shirou and the Tohsaka girl both left the house before groaning.

Taiga hadn't yet come over for breakfast, something that was to be expected given how early it already was.

She would probably have some time to do what she needed to.

Focusing on a specific castle in Europe, she tried to visualise the interior before tugging at Gaia. Gaia answered her call and with a sensation that mixed poorly with the alcohol in her bloodstream, she found herself once again in Rita's castle.

She took several seconds to regain her bearings and settle her stomach; teleporting had always caused her queasiness even before she had truly indulged herself in the pleasures of intoxication; the alcohol only stopped her from growing used to it.

Taking a deep breath she started wandering the corridors. Rita's castle was probably better described as a palace in architecture but the sheer complexity of the magical defenses were more than enough to hold off most invaders.

She was certain the only reason she was able to get in was because Rita had chosen to remain in the same location despite knowing she had already gotten in before the defenses had been fully erected. If Rita set up a new castle somewhere else, Sumire wouldn't have a chance of finding it.

Eventually she reached the door that indicated her throne room. Rita had been born a duchess and had never let go of that pride. After being promoted to the rank of Ancestor she had chosen to declare herself 'Queen of her realm'... which translated to the same sort of sentiment children had when they said 'I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal'.

Opening the door she felt a hint of amusement as she saw her old friend actually sitting on her throne. Whenever she visited, Rita was always either there or in a bathtub filled with the blood of beautiful young women.

Apparently it was supposed to keep her beautiful but it was hard to imagine the long red hair, smooth features and lithe figure as being products of such a ritual.

"Hello Sumire," she said, "you've returned rather quickly… it's barely been two days since your last visit."

"... did you tell Nero about my apprentice?" she asked.

"I told all of the ancestors who are willing to listen to me," she responded, "though I only told Nero the location of your apprentice."

Sumire took a deep breath.

"Nero attacked him," she informed her friend who simply shrugged.

"And? From what you informed me, he should have been able to survive long enough for Nero to spare him," Rita stated dismissively, "and if he can't… well, it's not like he's developed enough to be worth anything in Altrouge and Ortenrosse's little power struggle."

"Shirou traded information about himself for Nero to spare a magus," Rita blinked.

"What?" she sounded genuinely surprised, "why would he do that?"

"Because he's the type of person who actually _cares _about others," she responded.

Rita blinked before giving a dismissive chuckle.

"If that is the case, then we both know he'll die soon," Rita declared with a wave of her hand.

Sumire pouted at that. She knew that most apostles that actually cared died young… but none of them were as ludicrously hard to actually kill as Shirou was.

"He's got potential," she whined, "he said Nero even said to seek out Louvre and the Grail War."

Rita froze.

"Seek out Louvre and the Grail War?" she sounded extremely interested now.

Sumire was about to continue before remembering that this was the same person who sicced Nrvnqsr on Shirou.

"Oh no… I'm not saying anymore than that," she instead said.

"Oh? Shame," Rita responded with a sigh.

She narrowed her eyes.

"Not going to try prying further?" she asked, her suspicion rising.

Rita rolled her eyes.

"Please… you're a perpetual drunkard," her old friend dismissed, "if even you can see how stupid it is to talk about it then that says more than if you _did _talk about it."

Sumire snapped her mouth shut before cringing. Damn tongue getting in the way.

"Still… it will certainly be interesting to see just what your protegee grows to be capable of," the red haired woman declared with a smirk, "if even Nero sees enough in him to offer advice…"

Rita let the sentence hang. They both knew just how hard it was to truly impress Nrvnqsr. Even Louvre had been known to admit that he felt that the only reason he was chosen as Nrvnqsr's successor was because there wasn't a better option.

"So.. where will you be going now?" Rita said after several seconds of silence.

Sumire was about to answer before snapping her mouth shut and glaring at her friend.

"You'll just tell everyone where he is if I do," she stated.

"Oh please," Rita responded dismissively, "the only reason I even told Nero was because you compared what your protegee had done to what he achieved… the rest are on a merry little hunt around the world trying to figure out where you went."

Sumire stared at her.

"You should already know that I'm not aligned with any faction," Rita said again, "and watching them squabble is more fun than just telling them everything."

"I trusted you with Shirou's existence before," she said.

"You never said not to tell anyone," Rita replied, "if you actually cared that much then you should have made sure I promised not to."

"You told _Nero_," she pointed out, "I don't want Shirou dead yet."

"And he didn't die did he?" Rita responded.

"That's not the point," Sumire shot back, "the point is that you told Nero and even told him where Shirou was."

"If it was anyone else, then it wouldn't be so bad," she admitted, after all most of the others were more liable to try and recruit Shirou into their factions than kill him. But Nrvnqsr was different. He was a true monster amongst monsters.

"So… you said that your apprentice traded information for the life of a magus," Rita asked, "given the location, I'm guessing either Makiri or Tohsaka."

Sumire cringed at that.

"So Tohsaka then," Rita said, causing her to blink, "you only reacted after I mentioned Tohsaka."

Sumire groaned.

"... how about this then," Rita said, her tone about as conniving as it could get, "as an apology, I will help you teach the child."

"No," she responded without hesitation, there was no way she was letting Rita near Shirou… especially if there was the chance Tohsaka might be around… Tohsaka was the type of girl that Rita loved to bathe in the blood of after all.

"Oh? Are you trying to sabotage the child's development?" Rita asked.

"No… but I don't trust you to be near him now," she replied.

Rita blinked before chuckling.

"Fine, however my offer is still open," she said, "should you need any advice on magecraft tutelage, feel free to contact me."

"We'll see," she responded. Telling Rita that Shirou may have someone willing to aid him already would just give away too much.

And she'd already screwed up badly enough already.

"Well… I will see you later Rita," she said, "I'm looking forward to killing you."

"Likewise Sumire," the red haired lady responded with her own malicious grin.

Focusing on the Emiya household, Sumire tugged at Gaia once again.

Almost immediately she felt that nauseous sensation hit her as she reappeared in the home of her apprentice.

Now she just had to calm her gut and wait for either Shirou to return or Taiga to arrive.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

"Thank you Emiya-kun," Shirou nodded as he dropped Tohsaka off at her house.

He couldn't sense Nero Chaos within his analysis range, which was certainly relieving. It meant that the beast was probably doing just what he agreed to and leaving Tohsaka alone.

"It's fine Tohsaka," he replied, "I didn't want you to be caught off guard by Chaos again."

She nodded in response.

"Because I'd definitely die if that happened," she admitted.

Shirou simply nodded in agreement.

"Well, I'm heading back," he said.

"Emiya-kun, wait…" the girl said and he looked at her. It may not have actually meant anything on a practical level, but facing the person you were talking to was simply polite.

"Is something wrong Tohsaka?" he asked.

"... do you know why Chaos was hunting you in the first place?" she asked him.

"Sumire said that she told a friend of hers about me," he responded, "I'm guessing this friend told him about me."

Tohsaka cringed at that.

"And you're okay with that?" she asked him.

"Tohsaka, she's a hopeless drunk," he stated bluntly, "she probably doesn't even think about the consequences of most of her actions."

The girl sank at that.

"Still… it is strange that she'd tell others when she doesn't want you knowing about me," he admitted.

Tohsaka offered him a small smile.

"Well, if the Twenty Seven discover what sort of potential you have, then they're probably going to try and recruit you," Tohsaka admitted, "while the Church and Mages Association is more likely to send a swarm of Executors or Enforcers to destroy you."

Shirou nodded.

"I am going to guess that Chaos isn't normal for an ancestor," he said, earning a shrug off the girl.

"From what I've heard, he's closer to the norm than Sumire is," her words weren't surprising, "though he's still considered one of the worst."

Shirou nodded.

"Anyway, I'll leave you to get ready for school," he said.

"Thank you for your hospitality today Emiya-kun," she said before offering a small bow and nearly losing her balance.

"Not fully awake yet?" he asked her, causing her to sigh.

"Not yet," she admitted, "I will see you at school Emiya-kun."

He nodded before turning to leave.

Tohsaka entered her house, an old Western style mansion surrounded by so many barriers that he was surprised anyone could get inside.

And apparently the older Apostles had castles that made that look like a baby's playpen compared to Alcatraz.

He would definitely need to up his game if he was to stand a chance in this world.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Taiga felt exhausted as she walked along the street towards Shirou's house after school.

Everything had been happening so quickly now.

First the drunkard returned, then Shirou started drinking blood, then they discovered Tohsaka was a magus and then a monster had tried to eat Shirou and Tohsaka.

Despite everything however, she had one single thought that passed through her mind more than anything else.

The damage Sumire was doing to Shirou.

There was nowhere else for this monster to learn about Shirou from.

And then the woman had the nerve to try and force Shirou to remain out of contact with two other organisations that were less outright malicious than the one the drunkard had passed the information onto.

But there wasn't really anything she could do.

The vampire was an ancient being with power far beyond anything she could even consider possible. The fact that she had apparently managed to tear Shirou's body apart was more than enough proof of the difference in their abilities.

Shirou's body was made of steel. Sure it was steel refined to be used as blades which made it less durable than a steel girder or anything like that, but it was still stronger than flesh _and _Shirou could make it even harder with his magic.

Yet the drunkard was apparently capable of ripping him in half.

She doubted she could stop her even if she recruited the aid of her grandfather's entire gang.

Which meant all she could really do was hope that Shirou could see through the woman. For all she was dangerous, she was also probably the most useful resource he had when she entered his life.

But now Tohsaka was there.

Now Shirou had an actual witch to teach him the truth behind magic instead of the butchered lessons he got from Kiritsugu and the vampire.

Of course, all of this was her fault in the first place.

If she hadn't given Kiritsugu that horrible advice back when he asked, Shirou could have very well been taught properly from the start and never had a reason to latch onto the vampire.

She shook her head. Those thoughts had been going through her head ever since she had first seen Shirou turning his body into blades. It was unnatural. It was wrong on every level. Yet Shirou simply treated it the same way a normal person treated breathing.

And now… now he was talking about how hard it was to turn his body back and even the vampire herself said he had lost his original body.

In the end, he wasn't Shirou in body or mind. The only thing that truly remained of the boy was his soul and even that looked like it could be lost on the path he was walking.

But that goodness of his was still peeking through. Despite everything he had apparently not hesitated to save Tohsaka, meaning there was still hope for him.

Reaching the front door of the Emiya Residence, she released a sigh before opening it.

"Shirou! I'm home!" she called out.

"I know," his voice called back even as she made her way to the living room.

Shirou was in the kitchen and some food was already spread across the table. Thankfully the table was also lacking the vampire.

She took a deep breath.

"Shirou… are you sure it's a good idea to stay with that woman?" she asked him.

"It's not like I could get rid of her even if I tried," he responded without any fluctuation in his tone, "but in the end, she's proven useful even if she screws up."

Taiga couldn't stop herself from gawking at his statement.

"You're just ignoring the fact she almost got you killed?" she asked, unable to believe his callousness towards his own survival.

He faced her, his expression blank.

"I'm not ignoring that," he said, "but what happened happened. There is no point in dwelling on it when there are more important matters for me to deal with."

She frowned.

"More important matters? Like _what_?" she asked.

"Like the fact that the Dead Apostle Ancestors clearly know I exist," he responded causing her to flinch, "so right now, she's the closest thing I have to a shield to protect you from them before I'm strong enough to protect you myself."

She felt a lump catch in her throat.

"... protect me?" she muttered, her mind instantly shifting to reasons why such a monster might want to get to her. She had to admit, there were at least a couple.

Shirou turned away, instead focusing on the meal he was preparing once again.

"You're vulnerable Fuji-nee," he said, "all it takes is for a single vampire to decide you're a weakness of mine to exploit and you could easily end up dead. That is something I can't accept."

She swallowed the lump in her throat.

That was not a reason she was expecting to hear from him. The result was her falling silent.

"So until I'm powerful enough to protect you myself, I will just have to accept her presence," he said before an uneasy silence fell on the room.

"B-but how do you even plan on getting that strong?" she asked. There was a clear gap between what he was capable of compared to these other monsters that existed within this organisation.

"Nero Chaos said I should try and learn everything about swords," he answered, "so I am going to study what I can and try to increase my understanding of what the concept of 'sword' entails."

She felt herself sag. He said that but in the end, what could a sword do against things that could easily break them with a single blow?

"Where do you even plan on starting?" she asked. After all, what else was there to a sword?

"By speaking with gramps and arranging for an apprenticeship with any remaining swordsmiths in the area," she blinked.

She guessed that going to someone who forged blades would probably be the best place to start when trying to truly understand a blade.

Then she blinked.

"Wait… dont you already know how to forge a sword?" she asked. He had mentioned before that he could already record the entire forging process when he copied a blade, so what was the point?

"I have the forging of many different blades already memorised," he agreed, "but it's just that, memorisation, I don't truly understand what it means to forge a sword."

She nodded hesitantly.

She knew that there were tales of great blades all throughout history and that the blades were often considered to have some part of the person who forged them contained within.

Maybe that was why Shirou had made such a decision.

Rubbing her forehead, she dismissed that thought. This was not doing her any favors.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Louvre felt nervous as his master returned from his trip to Japan.

There was a silence that followed his master wherever he went. That was no surprise, anything with survival instincts knew to stay away from the 10th Dead Apostle Ancestor.

He had heard that individuals who interpreted magical energy as auditory stimuli heard wolves howling whenever he was near but as someone who didn't interpret magical phenomena that way he could not verify it.

"Master… did your trip go well?" he asked.

He wasn't confident he would get an answer but his own curiosity was begging him to ask regardless.

"It was productive," the writhing mass of mud responded, its tone sounding almost… satisfied, "the boy will try to hunt you down in the future. Make the chase interesting but not impossible for him."

His eyes widened.

Why was Nrvnqsr Chaos telling him to let the boy win?

"You would command me to let him defeat me?" he asked even as he felt heat rising to his cheeks. To think that his master would demand that he throw away his pride and lose against some amateur.

"No, I command that you let him find you," his master said, his tone cold, "and when he does… be certain you have your entire collection at your disposal. Should you fail to defeat him… _he _shall be named my successor."

Louvre froze.

For his master to declare that meant that he believed the boy was worthy of being named the tenth should he fall.

But that was too much.

There was no way some _child _no older than a century could be a better candidate for the position than him.

Yes, he knew he wasn't powerful enough to truly be considered an ancestor but to possibly be passed up for the position because of some brat with no age or accomplishments was the most insulting thing he could imagine.

He was brought out of his musings as his master walked away.

Taking an unneeded breath to calm himself, he considered the situation.

His master told him to let the boy find him but to use his full power against the child.

But… if this child was going to hunt him down then wouldn't it make sense to strike first?

However… his master said to make the chase difficult but not impossible… was it possible that his master would kill him for disobeying his orders?

He would just have to wait.

He could deal with a random child but his master was far beyond his ability to even imagine competing with.

He was better off waiting for the boy to come to him and striking him down then.

Calming himself down, he proceeded to make his way to his workshop.

He was going to make sure he was ready for whatever the boy could throw at him.

XXX Tainted Steel XXX

Arturia took a deep breath as she stepped out of the car at Tokavaig.

So this was the Isle of Skye. There really wasn't much there but then again, that was to be expected.

It was little more than a large island that had no real strategic importance so there would be no reason to build a bustling city there.

That suited her just fine. She may have been able to adapt to moving about a city but she was raised in the country during a time when England was a series of territories that belonged to many different Celtic cultures.

So the open country, forests and green hills that looked out to the Atalantic made her feel far more at peace than a place like the Clock Tower ever could.

However, she was there for a single purpose.

Dunscaith Castle.

It was the most likely location to act as a weak point between the barrier that separated the Reverse Side of the World.

Thankfully it wasn't far from the end of the road, according to the driver it would be less than a mile away.

So she started her walk to the edge of the island.

It didn't take long for her to see the once mighty castle, it's once mighty walls little more than a memory as the short stone bridge led up to the moss covered rock.

She felt her heart stir at the sight of such a thing. Back in her day, the idea of the mighty castle falling was as foreign as the idea of Lancelot being defeated in a fair duel.

Slowly she walked into the ruins. According to Waver Velvet they were protected as a monument of historical value but she didn't need to be told to be careful.

The mere idea of violating what was once the home of one of the most skilled teachers in history was revolting.

Upon reaching the centre of the ruins, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

This would be her only chance.

Should she fail, she would die.

Grasping at the location of her heart, she felt for Avalon and pulled.

Slowly but surely it emerged from her chest, solidifying before her.

Once it was ready, she focused her magical energy and poured it into the artefact.

She could feel it pulsating in her fingers, an action that wasn't normal for the sheathe but that was to be expected; she was trying to force it to access a location that it normally didn't.

Eventually the world around her grew colder, the ambient sound of wind and waves drained from the world before finally, she felt the presence of True Ether once again.

Opening her eyes, she was greeted by the inside of castle walls.

She had finally made it.

Now she just had to survive.

XXX Chapter End XXX

And that's all for now.

Shadow Out.


End file.
